With a strategic focus on urban engineering, Northeastern’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering is at the forefront of interdisciplinary research and education in the evolving fields of environmental health, civil infrastructure security, and sustainable resource engineering.
Research Thrusts
While ostensibly an issue of personal and public health, the pandemic's impact on all facets of life necessitates a broadly interdisciplinary approach to combating the disease, mitigating its economic impacts, and building a more resilient world against future threats. Learn about the research Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northeastern is conducting into COVID-19.
COVID-19 Research in Civil and Environmental Engineering
Snell Professor and Associate Dean for Research Akram Alshawabkeh was awarded $13.2M from the NIH for the multi-institutional and interdisciplinary research project for environmental influences of child health outcomes in Puerto Rico.
Environmental Health
Yujie Yan, PhD student, focuses research on developing autonomous unmanned aerial systems to conduct routine inspection and post-disaster assessment of infrastructure.
Civil Infrastructure Security
Professor Auroop Ganguly, director of the Sustainability and Data Sciences Laboratory, uses technologies such as artificial intelligence and deep machine learning to enhance climate science understanding and inform policy.
Sustainable Resource Engineering
Our students are engaged in critical engineering challenges, both locally and globally. From Engineers Without Borders to the American Society of Civil Engineers—there is something for everyone to have fun while expanding your knowledge.
CommunitySpotlight Stories
NSF CAREER Award to Improve Home Thermal Automation
Assistant Professor Michael Kane, civil and environmental engineering, recently received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award. The project will enable the design of automation in the built environment that models human physiological and behavioral responses to changing environmental temperature conditions to satisfy competing objectives of energy management and occupant comfort.
Engineering in Action
World-Renowned Cooperative Education
Te’Erica Eason is pursuing a BS in Environmental Engineering. She is also on the varsity basketball team and an e-board member of the New England Water and Environmental Association. She says co-op is her guiding light and so far worked at WSP USA on hydropower. She hopes to open her own business in water distribution systems in undeveloped rural areas when she graduates.
World-Renowned Cooperative Education
Jude Arbogast, BS, Civil Engineering, has done two co-ops at Suffolk Construction—one in scheduling and staffing, and the other in the field where he found his love of construction management. He says co-op allowed him to put his knowledge to the test and find out what he really wanted to do.
Recent News
Using Floating Wetlands to Combat Algae Blooms
Max Rome, PhD’21, civil engineering, is leading a team of Northeastern researchers to create a visually impactful floating wetland on the Charles River to serve as a model to support water ecosystems, including combating algae blooms.
Tracking Hurricane Data to Minimize Flooding Damage
CEE/MES Qin Jim Chen is working with the Nearshore Extreme Events Reconnaissance Association to track hurricane storm data for use in building better levees and infrastructure to minimize flooding damage.
Moving Towards a Toxic-Free Footprint for Improved Air Quality
CEE Assistant Professor Qi Ryan Wang is leading a $1.5M NSF grant, in collaboration with ECE Assistant Professor Yanzhi Wang, CEE/MES Assistant Professor Amy Mueller, CAMD Associate Professor Brooke Foucault Welles, and Adrienne Katner from the LA State University Health Science Center, to work on “Toxic-Free Footprints to Improve Community Health against Respiratory Hazards.”
Determining the Accuracy of Mobility Analysis Using Big Data
CEE Assistant Professor Ryan Wang, in collaboration with Cynthia Chen and Shuai Huang from the University of Washington, was awarded a $700K NSF grant for “A Whole-Community Effort to Understand Biases and Uncertainties in Using Emerging Big Data for Mobility Analysis.”