Annual Report Year 2009 - Civil and Environmental Engineering

PROGRAM AREAS
ENVIRONMENTAL AND WATER RESOURCES ENGINEERING
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from parking lots during thunderstorms on
temperatures in receiving water bodies,
and effects of bathymetry and vegetation
on thermal heterogeneity in streams and
rivers.
William Knocke stepped down as CEE
department head in August 2009 after 15
years of service in this position.
He was on research leave during the
fall semester 2009, and then will be welcomed
back to the EWR program as a fulltime
faculty member beginning in January
2010.
Over the past year he was named the
Outstanding Civil Engineer of the Year by
the Virginia Section of the American Society
of Civil Engineers and received the
2009 ASCE ExCEEd Leadership Award
from ASCE national.
He and his EWR colleagues look forward
to a return to the more traditional
faculty role within the group in the year to
come!
During the past year, John Little developed
and taught a new 4000-level class
titled “Environmental Sustainability.”
He was elected to the International
Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate
(ISIAQ) Academy of Fellows and was
invited by the Indoor Air Institute to cochair
a series of highly interdisciplinary
workshops on semi-volatile organic compounds
(SVOC) such as plasticizers and
flame retardants in the residential environment.
Little was also invited to be a keynote
speaker at the Fifth International Workshop
on Energy and Environment of
Residential Buildings and the Third International
Conference on Built Environment
and Public Health (EERB-BEPH 2009),
Guilin, Guangxi, China.
Little is also chair of a newly formed
IWA specialist group on lake and reservoir
management.
Lee Bryant, a Ph.D. student in Little’s
lake and reservoir management group,
received a two-year NSF earth sciences
postdoctoral fellowship to continue her
research on the biogeochemical cycling
of manganese, and its effect on drinking
water.
Little was also the lead technical expert
28 | VIA REPORT | 2009
on a large consulting project for Atlanta
entitled “Optimizing Water Quality at the
Conceptual Design Stage: Bellwood Quarry
Reservoir.” Vickie Singleton, a former
Ph.D. student in Little’s lake and reservoir
management group, played a central role
in the project.
Ying Xu, a Ph.D. student in Little’s indoor
air group, accepted a faculty position
in the Department of Civil, Architectural
and Environmental Engineering at the
University of Texas, Austin.
Little remains coordinator of the EWR
program.
Linsey Marr’s research in air quality
engineering focuses on improved quantification
of emissions, characterization of
airborne nanoparticles, and prediction of
the fate and transport of air pollutants.
Ph.D. student Tim Moore graduated
this year. His paper describing development
and testing of the Flux Lab for the
Atmospheric Measurement of Emissions
(FLAME) appeared on the cover of the
Journal of Environmental Quality.
Andrea Tiwari successfully defended
her M.S., received an NSF IGERT EIGER
fellowship, and is now pursuing doctoral
research on chemical transformations of
fullerene nanoparticles in the atmosphere.
Ph.D. student Marina Eller Quadros
reviewed the environmental risks of airborne
silver nanoparticles and is quantifying
emissions of such particles from consumer
products.
Post-doctoral researchers Amara Holder
and Jennifer Benning joined the group
from UC Berkeley and the University of
Alaska, respectively, to study the interactions
of nanoparticles with lung cells and
the interactions of endocrine-disrupting
chemicals emitted by vinyl flooring with
particles.
Two new Ph.D. students, Mike Klapmeyer
and Wan Yang, joined the group
this fall.
Currently on sabbatical in-house, Marr
is exploring new research directions in
the airborne transmission of disease while
also finalizing a backlog of results for publication.
Glenn Moglen spent the year settling
into his position with new efforts in teaching,
research, and service/outreach.
Moglen’s first forays into distance
teaching included developing new versions
of existing graduate courses: CEE
5324: advanced hydrology, and CEE
5734: urban hydrology and stormwater
management.
In the fall, he taught his first undergraduate
course in CEE 4304: hydrology. Part
of his preparation included working closely
with the campus’ Institute for Distance and
Distributed Learning to bring digital whiteboard
technology to Virginia Tech in time
for this course.
In research, he had a productive year
with four to five journal publications on
topics ranging from climate/land use
change effects on flow duration, spurious
correlation associated with EPA TMDL
methods, optimization of land development
patterns for flood control, and effects
of climate/land use change on stream
ecology.
He is the lead-principal investigator on
recent funding from ICTAS that will support
the studies of several students and
colleagues in Northern Virginia with a
focus on water supply in the Washington,
D.C., metropolitan region in the face of
changing climate and land use.
Moglen reports recent growth in his research
group. Suzanne Ciavola (MS), Phil
Maldonado (MS), and Jim Stagge (Ph.D.)
are commencing their studies presently.
In the area of service and outreach,
Moglen guest edited the April 2009 issue
of ASCE Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
that focused on “Impervious Areas and
Hydrology.”
He also assumed chairmanship of the
ASCE Watershed Management technical
committee in October, 2008.
Moglen now serves as the engineering
faculty organization representative for engineering
from the National Capital Region
(NCR). He also became president-elect of
the NCR Faculty Association.
Finally, Moglen enjoyed a trip last fall to
Berlin, Germany as part of a NSF-sponsored
joint U.S.-German conference on
land use decision making under a changing
climate.
John Novak and his students continued
their research in wastewater, biore-
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