After two years of meeting virtually, the National Academy of Engineering held its annual meeting on October 2nd to welcome new inductees from the Classes of 2020, 2021, and 2022! This year, CEE alumni and faculty were part of the inductees honored in the NAE ceremony, one of the highest professional honors in engineering.
In a Nature article, CEE Professor Amy Pickering talks about how she created a water purification device named the Venturi that runs without electricity and removes contaminants that can enter leaky pipes. In her postdoctoral research, from 2012 to 2015, she helped make drinking water safe in Dhaka by developing an automated disinfection system to sterilize water directly from the tap in communities that lack access to clean water, or sanitation tools and have many diseases circulating.
Professor Dimitrios Zekkos and PhD students Weibing Gong, Parker Blunts, and Mirna Kassem, participated this summer in an expedition to characterize rock masses and landslides caused by the 2017 Hurricane Maria and 2020 Puerto Rice earthquake.
By Karen Holtermann
Some 250 friends and colleagues gathered on September 17 to remember CEE professor Karl S. Pister, whose 70-year career at the University of California included service as Dean of the College of Engineering at Berkeley, chancellor at UC Santa Cruz, and UC’s first vice president for educational outreach.
Laney College and the department have a long-term history of meeting annually for a shared fluid mechanics lecture. Last week, the department implemented a unique approach to the yearly visit of Laney students.
Last Monday, students from CE 170A, a "Smart Infrastructure Sensing and Modeling" class, met on campus to see how to obtain 3D data. They planned flights using UAVs equipped with cameras and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and also ran LiDar scans. CEE Professors Dimitrios Zekkos and Robert Kayen led the sessions, who, along with Professor Kenichi Soga, serve as co-instructors of the course. Ph.D. students Jaewson Saw, who serve as GSI's, and Drew Gomberg and Parker Blunts helped organize the session.
GeoSystems Master students enrolled in CE 281 Engineering Geology took their first field trip of the semester last week! The class visited six different locations to learn more about geology and the pivotal role the sites played in shaping the engineering industry.
This year, students from the department and the College of Environmental Design (CED) are participating in the DBIA 2022 National Student Design-Build Competition, which focuses on the Design-Build project delivery method. Team members include Yasamine Heidary, Adriana Lupercio, Rapha Felipe, Victoria Ng, and Gabriela Rivera. Professor Iris Tommelein serves as a Faculty Advisor to the team.
Like other areas in California, the groundwater beneath Allensworth contains dangerous levels of arsenic. Those who live in cities and more suburban areas can afford to remove arsenic from their water, but many people in small and rural communities don't have that luxury. They must choose between drinking contaminated tap water or purchasing bottled water—and some people who have private wells are potentially unaware that their water is contaminated.
