CEGE NEWS Fall 2023 - Faculty

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The Minnesota Federation of Engineering, Science and Technology Societies (MFESTS) Awards Dinner, held Tuesday September 26, honored award recipi­ents for both 2022 and 2023. MFESTS Awardees included GARY DAVIS, ASCEMN 2022 Charles W. Britzius Distinguished Engineer (pictured); WILLIAM ARNOLD, ASCEMN 2023 Charles W. Britzius Distinguished Engineer; RAPHAEL STERN, ASCEMN 2022 Young Engineer of the Year; and BOYA XIONG, ASCEMN 2023 Young Engineer of the Year (pictured).

RAYMOND HOZALSKI, JIA-LIANG LE, and STEFANO GONELLA have been named Record Professors. Record Professor­ships are made possible thanks to a generous donation by Dorothy Record Bauman, who left a gift through her estate that created the James L. Record Fund for the benefit of our department. The Record Fund supports the research and teaching of CEGE faculty. 

BILL ARNOLD is one of two-dozen-plus co-authors on a paper that received a lot of attention in the media. Their article reviews several studies from multiple disciplines looking at the pros and cons of using disinfectants. Tom Perkins, a writer at The Guardian told the authors that his article about the paper was the most-read article across all of The Guardian’s websites (US, UK, and Australia). The article reinforces recommendations to choose soap and water. https://cse.umn.edu/cege/news/ disinfect-or-not-disinfect-question 

BILL ARNOLD (PI), along with co-PIs SEBASTIAN BEHRENS and Will Pomer­antz (Chemistry) received a new NSF Division of Chemistry grant for their study “Fluorine Beyond PFAS: Pathways to Sustainable Fluorochemical Design Through Environmental Degradation Studies and Fluorine Mass Balances.” 

EMMANUEL DETOURNAY, Kaixiao Tian, and Ganesh Ramakrishnan received U.S. Patent #11,321,506 for a Fast Algo­rithm to Simulate the Response of PDC Bits. (Published on August 29, 2023) 

GARY DAVIS, JOHN HOURDOS, and JINGRU GAO (Ph.D. student advised by Davis) published the MnDOT report, Criteria and Guidelines for Three-Lane Road Design and Operation. “Our goal for this project,” said Davis, “was to develop a better understanding of road conversions and their impact on motor vehicle capacity at different traffic volumes.” 

XUE FENG has been promoted  to Associate Professor with tenure. Feng is also a McKnight Land-Grant Associate Professor, and a researcher at the St Anthony Falls Laboratory. Through her research, Feng aims to discover response to climate change and use this knowledge to advance Earth system modeling and climate predictions.  She is currently teaching courses on Stochastic Ecohydrology, Hydrologic Design, and Uncertainty and Decision Analysis. 

XUE FENG co-authored a newly published article on women’s contribu­tion to the field of hydrology. “We hope that this article will highlight the contri­butions that women have already made to the hydrological sciences,” said Feng, “and help identify where the field still has a way to go in terms of reaching gender parity in leadership and decision-making roles.” 

XUE FENG moderated a discussion between two climate champions at ARCS’ Minnesota Scientists of the Year event. The 2023 Climate Champion awards were presented to J. Drake Hamilton and Patrick Hamilton, two indi­viduals who contributed significantly to improving the local and global climate. Their presentation, “Seizing our Climate Moment,” was presented May 17, 2023, at the Weisman Art Museum on the UMN campus. 

JOHN GULLIVER’S research is part of a discussion about stormwater manage­ment in Finance & Commerce. “How infrastructure can curb growing storm­water challenges,” Sept 22, 2023. 

RAYMOND HOZALSKI was awarded $2.1 million by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to study oppor­tunistic pathogens in the US water distribution systems. Hozalski (Principal Investigator), along with his co-PIs, Srijan Aggarwal, University of Alaska Fairbanks; TIMOTHY LAPARA, UMN; and Carsten Prasse and John Sivey of Johns-Hopkins University developed an innovative approach to explore the tradeoffs between controlling oppor­tunistic pathogens (OPs) and the risks of introducing disinfection byproducts (DBPs). They will study water utilities located across the U.S., including small systems in rural Alaska that are typically understudied.

JIA-LIANG LE  (Ph.D., P.E., F.EMI, M.ASCE) has been elected as a Fellow of the ASCE Engineering Mechanics Institute. EMI confers this recognition on members with a distinguished record of research, accomplishments, and service to the Institute. 

JIA-LIANG LE was elected to the Board of Governors of the International Associ­ation of Fracture Mechanics of Concrete and Concrete Structures (IA-FraMCoS). Founded in 1991, IA-FraMCoS aims to promote use of fracture mechanics in the analyses and design of concrete materials and structures, towards safer and more durable infrastructures. 

PEDRAM MORTAZAVI, who will join the faculty in January, co-authored a paper selected as the Editor’s Choice for the July issue of ASCE Journal of Struc­tural Engineering. The paper presents the design and experimental validation of an alternative design of cast steel replaceable yielding links, which have been proven to significantly improve the response of steel eccentrically braced frames under earthquakes.

PAIGE NOVAK is the Principal Investigator for one of 8 projects to receive a 2022 Sustainable Develop­ment Goals (SDG) Research Grant Award from the UMN Global Programs and Strategy Alliance. Her research addresses outcomes related to SDGs #6, #11, and #13. The research will be exploring existing “low-tech” wastewater treat­ment technologies such as wastewater treatment ponds that can be leveraged globally for improved sanitation. The basis of operation for treatment ponds is microbiological, so studying pond microbiomes should allow researchers to determine the most influential factors under engineering control. 

CAROL SHIELD received the distinction of Honorary Member, the highest distinction awarded by the American Concrete Institute (ACI). Shield was the driving force behind creation of the national design specifications ACI 440 for the design of structural concrete reinforced with glass fiberreinforced polymers (GFRP). This huge undertaking required significant effort throughout her career, and even as an emeritus professor. Shield was chosen for her “outstanding contributions as an educator, researcher, and leader, including her tireless service to the profession.” Shield will be recognized at the Spring 2024 ACI Convention.

Automated vehicles (AVs), whether fully autonomous or partially automated, have the potential to provide tremendous safety and efficiency benefits; however, they may also be susceptible to compromise via cyberattacks. RAPHAEL STERN received funding from the Center for Transportation Studies to examine the effects cyberattacks may have on AVs and how affected vehicles might impact traffic operations.  Read more  

BEN WORSFOLD, et al., received the ACI Wason Medal for Most Meritorious Paper, given to the top paper selected from all the papers submitted to ACI Structural Engineering Journal and ACI Materials Journal. “Moment Transfer at Column-Foundation Connections: Physical Tests,” DOI: 10.14359/51734799.

JUDY YANG was one of the eighty-one highly accomplished early-career engineers selected by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) to take part in The Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering 2023 Symposium. The event brings together engineers performing exceptional research and technical work in a variety of disciplines and crossing industry, academia, and government. Yang commented, “It was very inspiring to network with extraordinary colleagues and learn about various research topics, ranging from health care, to quantum computing, to misinformation, and mining industries.”