News

UT Tower at sunset on UT Austin campus

NSF renews support for the Cockrell School of Engineering at UT Austin to house one of seven, state-of-the-art, experimental natural hazards research facilities. 

Texas CAEE professor Lance Manuel

Lance Manuel, Professor of Mechanics, Uncertainty and Simulation in Engineering (MUSE), recently received the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company Award for Excellence in Engineering Teaching.

The National Academy of Construction has elected William J. O'Brien, professor and associate chair for architectural engineering in the Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, as a new member of its 2020 class.

UT Tower at sunset on UT Austin campus

Seven alumni from the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin have been elected to the Academy of Distinguished Alumni.

UT Tower at sunset on UT Austin campus

The University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering is once again ranked in the top five in the latest rankings from U.S. News & World Report, strengthening the department's position as one of the nation’s best undergraduate engineering programs.

Texas CAEE assistant professor Sergio Castellanos

Sergio Castellanos joins the CAEE department as an assistant professor.

Texas CAEE assistant professor Matthew Bartos

Matt Bartos is the department's new Environmental and Water Resources Engineering assistant professor.

UT Tower at sunset on UT Austin campus

Francisca Aroso Pinto de Oliveira is the department's new Assistant Professor of Practice.

Texas civil engineer Wen-Jo (Walter) Chiang

Recognized as a leader in the environmental and civil engineering industry, Walter leaves a memorable mark for his kindness, generosity and his unmatched passion for education.

UT Austin professors from the Cockrell School of Engineering and College of Natural Sciences were recently selected to receive a $2 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to better forecast and identify potential lapses in water quality in urban water infrastructure. The interdisciplinary team will develop more accurate predictive models that could better protect the health of the American public from contaminated drinking water and guide future infrastructure investment.

The project's investigators are Professors Charles Werth, Lina Sela, Kerry Kinney and Lynn Katz from the Department of Civil, Architecture and Environmental Engineering and Cory Zigler from the Department of Statistics and Data Sciences.

The project, “Leading Engineering for America's Prosperity, Health, and Infrastructure (LEAP-HI): Smart Sensing and Forecasting of Water Quality in the Water Distribution Network For Protection of Public Health,” aims to develop a broadly adaptable process and data-driven models that will give water managers better tools to identify disturbances or lapses in water quality that could expose people to associated health risks.

In the U.S., pathogens in drinking water from public water systems cause an estimated 33 million cases of gastrointestinal illness each year. Two main pathogens found in contaminated drinking water, Legionella and non-tuberculous Mycobacteria, cause respiratory infection.

Pathogen occurrence can be caused by problems with the premise (building) plumbing (where end-users consume water), the water treatment and distribution network (where the water is being treated and distributed), which can be caused by extreme events such as flooding or by reliability failures that occur as infrastructure ages.

Motivated by the lead epidemic in Flint, Michigan and water quality issues that occurred in Houston and the Texas Gulf Coast after Hurricane Harvey, researchers will use data-driven modeling approaches to adequately capture the complexity of an entire water system for real-time prediction of imminent transient and ongoing public health risks.

Principal Investigator Werth said, “This grant represents a unique opportunity to connect water quality and public health and to train students in these often separate but connected disciplines.”

Three unique test beds will be utilized to gather data from small—and large-scale systems using smart sensing and monitoring efforts. They include a laboratory-based pipe network, the water distribution system on the UT Austin campus and the City of Victoria, Texas utilities.

Co-PI Sela has already begun monitoring pressure changes in the water distribution system on campus. She said, “Utilizing more advanced sensing and models and promoting collaboration between academic research and public utilities will support the modernization of urban water systems.”

Katz and Kinney have also previously collected water quality data related to Hurricane Harvey, highlighting changes in the microbial composition of the water in the distribution system.

The project also includes interdisciplinary graduate student training in hydraulics, water chemistry, microbiology, systems engineering, big data, risk assessment, and public health. An outreach component will also be created to connect water utility, health care and public policy experts with the general public.