Research
Convergent research with collaboration across government, industry, and academia
The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering attracts exceptional faculty who conduct state-of-the-art research, are dedicated educators at both the undergraduate and graduate level, and advance the state of professional practice. Faculty conduct interdisciplinary research in department research areas, as part of the college’s multidisciplinary research centers, and within their laboratories, as well as working across the university, and with industry, government, and academia.
The department also has dedicated staff who provide a range of operational services, including laboratory technicians, a dedicated machine shop, and budget and finance.
View faculty profiles including faculty laboratory research, and recent Annual Reports.
Quick Facts
external research funding (2022-24)
young investigator awards
research centers and institutes
tenured/tenure-track faculty
The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering education and research missions are focused on Urban Engineering, anchored by several multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional centers and programs. Building on current strengths and expanding into new and vital areas, three overarching interdisciplinary research and education thrusts of the department include Environmental Health, Civil Infrastructure Security, and Sustainable Resource Engineering, with subthemes and disciplinary excellence in each of these areas. We have premier departmental strengths in four integrated enabling technologies that include Simulation (both computational and experimental), Smart Sensing, and Data and Network Science, and Urban Informatics.
q.wang@northeastern.edu
Urban and social resilience; geo-social networking; coupled, human-natural systems, natural disaster response and evacuation; urban computing
ya.zhang@northeastern.edu
Air quality; atmospheric chemistry; cloud/aerosol microphysics; sensitivity and uncertainty analysis; multiscale atmospheric modeling and forecasting; climate and Earth system modeling; health impact assessment; eco-environmental sustainability; human-Earth system interactions
Recent News
What Severe South American Quakes Teach Us About West Coast Disaster Readiness
Following a devastating doublet earthquake in Venezuela, Northeastern structural and resilience experts are urging California to bolster its preparedness for a future major rupture along the San Andreas Fault. Interim Dean Jerome Hajjar and CSSH/CEE Associate Professor Serena Alexander highlight that true mitigation requires addressing vulnerabilities across both interconnected physical infrastructure networks and local neighborhood emergency support systems.
Why Extreme Summer Temperatures Are Pushing Engineering Limits
As extreme heat strains infrastructure worldwide, CEE Associate Teaching Professor Nancy Varney and Professor Auroop Ganguly emphasize that prolonged spikes in temperature threaten to overwhelm power grids and public transit networks by exceeding baseline engineering parameters.
Building Low Cost Digital Twins to Accelerate Robotics Innovation
Fatemeh Ghoreishi, an Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, jointly appointed with the Khoury College of Computer Sciences, was awarded $281,660 from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative’s Innovation Institute, supporting a $352,075 project with matching cost-share, for OpenBayes Twin-in-a-Box: A Public, Decision-Grade Digital Twin and Manufacturable Compliant Manipulation Module for Massachusetts Logistics and Manufacturing. The award, granted under the institute’s Robotic Digital Twin Initiative, was one of six delivered across Massachusetts.
Evaluating the Limits of Modern Traffic Metrics
CSSH/CEE Associate Professor Serena Alexander conducts research finding that while the new “vehicle miles traveled” (VMT) metric is an improved way to evaluate a development’s environmental impact, its success is limited by a lack of tool standardization, legal precedent, and community equity.