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
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
Testing Well Water To Help Owners Manage Water Quality
Kyla Drewry, a PhD civil and environmental engineering student, under the guidance of CEE Assistant Professor Kelsey Pieper, led a team of PhD students on a research trip to North Carolina where they tested private well water. One in four residents using private wells in that region is faced with contamination issues.
Finding Unexpected Ordnances on the Seafloor With Passive Samplers
CEE Associate Professor Loretta Fernandez is working to develop passive samplers to locate munitions dumped into oceans decades ago during World Wars I and II, while also studying the potential toxicities of these weapons as they have degraded over time.
New Model for Wind Turbine Blade Design
CEE Professor Luca Caracoglia, in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts Amherst, was awarded a $704,942 NSF grant for “Modeling the Influence of Turbulence on Flow-Induced Instabilities of Large Flexible Structures With Innovative Applications in Wind Turbine Blades.”
Effective Strategies for Deploying Roadway Maintenance Machines
CEE Professor Haris Koutsopoulos published a paper, “Strategies To Optimize the Deployment of Roadway Maintenance Machines for Overnight Maintenance in Urban Rail Systems,” in the Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board.