Warren Distinguished Lecture Series

Susan Brantley focuses on what has been learned over the last two decades about water impacts related to shale gas development (including fracking).

Jinhui Yan presents a sharp-diffusive interface computational method for simulating multiphysics processes in metal additive manufacturing (AM), focusing on better handling gas-metal interface, where metal AM physics mainly takes place. 

Robust CAV Coordinated In-Vehicle Routing Leveraging Game Theories, Machine Learning, and Distributed Optimization

A Warren Distinguished Lecture with Lili Du, Civil and Coastal Engineering, University of Florida 

Wireless communication, onboard computation facilities, and advanced sensor techniques  have enabled a well-connected and data-rich transportation system, i.e., connected vehicle system (CVS). Even though the CVS has been granted a great potential to smartly route travelers (or CVs) to avoid traffic congestion, scholars have recognized that as the majority of vehicles become CVs, current real-time information provision and routing methods may worsen traffic congestion, given each CV selfishly and independently chooses its own shortest path. This inherent deficiency of the current routing methods is rooted in the inconsistency between system performance and individual vehicles' route choice behavior. By viewing this, our studies have introduced a novel Coordinated In-Vehicle Routing Mechanism (CRM), which used various game theories to coordinate CVs' routing decisions to address the overreaction phenomenon and the inability to control system performance.

A Warren Distinguished Lecture 
and 2023 Engineering Mechanics Institute of ASCE (EMI) Elasticity Committee Distinguished Lecture

with Roberto Ballarini
Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Houston

Ballarini shows in paradigmatic examples amenable of generalization that a configurational force can be viewed as the resultant of the contact forces acting on the perturbed shape of an object of substance equivalent to the defect, and evaluated in the limit of the shape being restored to the primitive configuration. The expressions for the configurational forces on cracks and dislocations are in agreement with those determined using classical variational arguments. It is hoped that this somewhat novel approach, which has been applied by Bigoni and coworkers to illustrate configurational forces in structural components, may open a new prospective in the use of configurational forces by permitting their physical and intuitive visualization. 

A Warren Distinguished Lecture with Andreas Malikopoulos, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Cornell University

In most instances, cyber-physical systems (CPS), represent complex systems with decentralized structure. An ideal model is typically assumed in order to derive optimal control strategies for CPS. Such model-based control approaches cannot effectively facilitate optimal solutions with performance guarantees due to the discrepancy between the model and the actual cyber-physical system. On the other hand, in most CPS there is a large volume of dynamic data, which is added to the system gradually in real time. Thus, traditional supervised learning approaches cannot always facilitate robust solutions using data derived offline. By contrast, applying reinforcement learning approaches directly to the actual CPS might impose significant implications on the safety and robust operation of the system. In this talk, Malikopoulos discusses the challenges of supervised learning and model-based control approaches in several CPS applications, including self-learning powertrain control, power management control of hybrid electric vehicles, and optimal coordination of connected and automated vehicles. Then, Malikopoulos presents a theoretical framework founded at the intersection of control theory and learning that circumvents these challenges in deriving optimal strategies for CPS.

A Warren Distinguished Lecture with Daniel Zielinski,  Great Lakes Fishery Commission and Michigan State University

One of the greatest global issues facing fishery managers is the connectivity conundrum, that is, the tension between improving aquatic connectivity for fishery restoration versus using dams and barriers to manage invasive species. Selective connectivity, where organism movement is selective based on restoration or conservation goals, presents a potential solution to the connectivity conundrum. The Great Lakes Fishery Commission and its partners are developing an approach to selective fish passage that integrates fish ecology and biology with engineering at FishPass. The FishPass project will replace the last of four legacy barriers on the Boardman (Ottaway) River, Traverse City, Michigan. The improved barrier and adaptable fishway is designed to develop and test tools to selectively pass desirable fish while blocking and/or removing undesirable fish, like the invasive sea lamprey. The process used to select and configure fish sorting tools will follow an eco-engineering approach inspired by material recycling, and will emphasize automation and the integration of multiple technologies that target sortable attributes of fish (phenological, morphological, behavioral, and physiological). Zielinski provides an overview of FishPass including ongoing research supporting selective fish passage in the Laurentian Great Lakes.

a Warren Distinguished Lecture with Garrett McKay, Civil & Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M University

Photochemistry is the process of light energy being converted into chemical energy, which is initiated by the interaction of molecules with photons. Photochemical reactions play critical roles in natural and engineered environmental systems, such as treatment technologies for abatement of chemical and microbiological contaminants and natural cycling of elements in aquatic systems. The rates and mechanisms of photochemical reactions are governed by properties of the light source, background water matrix, and intrinsic properties of the target contaminant. Garrett McKay and his research group apply these fundamental concepts to study photochemical reactions of important to surface water as well as engineered treatment systems. This presentation will focus on his group’s work to improve the performance of ultraviolet advanced reduction processes (UV-ARP) for the complete destruction of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in real world waters. McKay will describe results from studies by his group aimed at quantifying the key processes involved in UV-ARP and how this quantitative knowledge has impacted efforts to enhance PFAS destruction in challenging water matrices.

Katherine and Arthur Sehlin Memorial Lecture with Patrick Ray, Environmental Engineering, University of Cincinnati 
and 2023 J.S. Braun/Braun Intertec Visiting Professor at the University of Minnesota

Adaptation to climate change is expensive and benefits are not guaranteed. We do not know what amount of greenhouse gases will be emitted by the current generation, nor the impacts the resultant warming will have on our water, agricultural, energy, ecological, and urban systems. We have difficult decisions to make and must not allow uncertainty to paralyze progress toward a better world. Patrick Ray applies concepts of deep uncertainty to example challenges. His aim is to improve decision confidence built on cost-effectiveness, sustainability, equity, and resilience through the critical tool of trade-off analysis. The product must be decision-relevant and interpretable by those who must implement the findings. We have never before had such an opportunity to derive insights from global observations, nor a bigger challenge of complex multidimensionality. Ray shares incremental victories in the realm of water resources decision science and offers a vision for the next decade of needed research.