News Briefs from CEE

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Michigan Tech’s Tribal Technical Assistance Program has won a Tribal Excellence Award from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation. The award will be presented at the Wisconsin Tribal Transportation Conference on Nov. 3 in Green Bay. Award recipients are recognized for providing exemplary contributions and services to building and enhancing partnerships with the Wisconsin DoT and Wisconsin’s tribal communities. TTAP provides technology, training and information on tribal roads and bridges, tourism, recreation and related economic development to tribal transportation and planning personnel. It is part of a nationwide program sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Alex Mayer (CEE/CWS) is the principal investigator on a research and development project that has received a $599,590 grant from the National Science Foundation. The three-year project is RET Site: PLACE-Promoting Learning About Computational Tools and the Environment. Noel Urban (CEE) is the co-PI for this project.

John Velat (CEE) is the principal investigator of a project that received $18,000 from the Minnesota Department of Transportation. The public service project contract is for the 2015 Minnesota Tribes and Transportation Conference. Amanda Kerttu (CEE) is the co-PI on the project.

Martin Auer (CEE) is the principal investigator on a project that received $33,200 in additional funding from Ajax, Ontario. His team has been examining the nuisance growth of Cladophora, a filamentous green alga, in Lake Ontario.
The large quantities of rotting alga on the shoreline has been a growing concern for the community. Auer and his team have been studying the problem in Ajax since 2013. The project has totaled more than $320,000 in external sponsored funding. The primary objective is to identify and quantify the contributions of phosphorus from various sources to the nutrient environment that supports nuisance growth of the alga. Pengfei Xue (CEE) is a co-PI on the project.
Tess Ahlborn (CEE) was an invited key note speaker at the Fourth Asian Conference on Ecstasy in Concrete hosted by the Indian Concrete Institute and the 1st International Symposium of the Asian Concrete Federation on Ultra-High Performance Concrete, Oct. 8-10 in Kolkata, India. As a Fellow of the American Concrete Institute and the Chair of ACI 239- UHPC, she served as the ACI Ambassador.

Tim Colling (CEE/MTTI), is the principal investigator on a project that has received $446,685 from the Michigan Department of Transportation for the “2016 Michigan Local Technical Assistance Program.” John Kiefer (CEE) and Christine Codere (CEE) are Co-PIs on the project.

Colin Brooks is a senior research scientist for the Michigan Tech Research Institute. His background is in remote sensing and GIS, and his area of expertise is in satellite imagery analysis, aerial imagery analysis and integrating geospatial data. Read more at Roads & Bridges

The U.S. DOT first approached Brooks to do environmental assessments on highway bypasses and look at vehicle crossing times at international borders under the agency’s Commercial Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Program.

Michigan Tech Rail Transportation Program led the organization of 3rd Annual Rail Conference that took place in Grand Rapids in August. The event was supported by the Michigan Department of Transportation and the National University Rail Center (NURail). The event attracted a record-breaking 170 participants and 16 industry sponsors and included a half day of field visits to local rail facilities, followed by a full day of technical sessions and panel discussions. The keynote speech was delivered by Joseph Szabo, the executive director of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (past Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration). Pasi Lautala (CEE/MTTI) co-chaired the event and organization team was led by David Nelson and Amanda Kerttu. Two students, Sumanth Kalluri and Aaron Dean were also at the location to assist in the organization. Next year, Michigan Tech will bring the Michigan Rail Conference for the first time to the Upper Peninsula. The conference will take place on August 17-18, 2016 in Marquette. For more information, visit the conference website.

The Detroit Free Press quoted Pasi Lautala (CEE) in an article on a plan to create a special logistics and supply chain district near the new bridge to Canada and downtown Detroit.

A story “Michigan Tech project looks to improve U.P. roads” related to research work by Dr. Zhanping You appeared on TV6. Another story “Rubber to the road: Tech’s experimental pavement put down for testing” related to research work by Dr. Hand and Zhanping You also appeared on the Daily Mining Gazette.

WNWN-FM, WHTC-AM, WKZO and WVIC radio all covered the 3rd annual Michigan Rail Conference in Grand Rapids last week, hosted by Michigan Tech and the Michigan Department of Transportation.

Environmental Monitor, an environmental news service, reported on the Michigan Tech GLRC’s deployment of a buoy to monitor water conditions in the Straits of Mackinac.
Associated Press, the Sault Ste. Marie Evening News, WJMN-TV and other news outlets around Michigan covered Michigan Tech’s announcement of Enbridge’s sponsorship of a new monitoring buoy that will be deployed and operated by Tech’s Great Lakes Research Center in the Straits of Mackinac. Read more here “Governor Rick Snyder at Great Lakes Research Center”

The Associated Press, The Washington Times and numerous TV stations reported that the Michigan Department of Transportation is partnering with Michigan Tech and the railroad industry to sponsor the third annual Michigan Rail Conference Aug. 19-20 in Grand Rapids.

Railway Age reported that Pasi Lautala (CEE) will speak about education of future rail industry workers at the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association’s (AREMA) annual conference in Minneapolis in October.

The Michigan Tech Rail Transportation Program and the Michigan Department of Transportation Office of Rail will again organize the annual Michigan Rail Conference. This year’s conference will be in Grand Rapids at the Grand Valley State University, Eberhard Center. The one-day conference will take place on August 20, an afternoon field trip to rail and rail related facilities around Grand Rapids will take place on the afternoon of August 19.

Chris Gilbertson, senior research engineer for the Center for Technology & Training, part of the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, was asked to moderate the non-member discussion for the 2015 AASHTOWare RADBUG (Rating and Design Bridge User Group) National Meeting held in early Aug. in Albany, NY. The RADBUG Meeting was coordinated by the New York State Department of Transportation.

KDLH-TV and Fox 21 in Duluth broadcast news stories about Michigan Tech’s Rail and Intermodal Transportation Institute, part of Summer Youth Programs. High school students participating in the institute are in Duluth visiting rail companies and train yards.

College Factual, a website member of USA Today’s College Partner Network, has ranked Michigan Tech in the top 10 in the nation for bachelor’s degree programs in the general area of natural resources and conservation and 5th in the nation for its forestry programs within natural resources and conservation. College Factual lists four undergraduate degrees in three areas within the field of natural resources and conservation at Michigan Tech. The areas are natural resources conservation, forestry and wildlife management.
Most college rankings are based on surveys of deans, faculty and students. College Factual says its rankings are based on more objective data, including outcomes-based metrics, which College Factual defines as: “Can students in these programs actually make a living after graduation?” In Michigan Tech’s case, the website determined that they can.
Qingli Dai (CEE/MTTI) is the principal investigator on a research project that received $333,463 based on contract costs. The title of the project is, Incorporating Surface-Treated Rubber Particles into Portland Cement and Geopolymer Concrete to Field Performance. Also working on this project are Shiyue Fang (Chem) and Zhanping You (CEE).

David Watkins (CEE/CWS) is the principal investigator on a research project that received a $47,200 grant from the Nation Science Foundation. The project is titled, Coupled Production-Consumption Systems for Climate Change Mitigation: Designing Equitable Food, Energy and Water Conservation Strategies. Co-PI for the project is Kathleen Halvorsen (SS).

Technology Century, a science and technology news website published by the Engineering Society of Detroit, reported on a visit by ESD executives to Michigan Tech and plans to establish a student chapter of the ESD at Michigan Tech.

Joan Schumaker-Chadde (CEE/GLRC) has received $5,000 from Michigan State University for the public service project Governance Approaches to Foster Great Lakes Literacy, Identity and Stewardship: An Integrated Assessment.

Pasi Lautala, director of the Michigan Tech Rail Transportation Program (RTP), led a group of students and staff at the annual NURail meeting in Chicago, June 3-4.NURail is a University Transportation Center (UTC) with a railroad focus. NURail has 7 member universities, and 14 affiliates, see more information at NURail Center. Lautala presented a session on NURail Affiliate Universities, and collaborated with senior research engineer David Nelson on a session on Senior Design and Enterprise projects at Michigan Tech. Hamed Pouryousef and Sumanth Kalluri presented a group of posters highlighting Michigan Tech railroad research projects, and Hamed participated in the 3-minute thesis competition.

Principal Investigator Kuilin Zhang (CEE/MTTI), along with Co-PI Colin Brooks (MTII), have received a research and development grant of $200,000 from the National Science Foundation for a three-year project. The project is titled Improving Spatial Observability of Dynamic Traffic Systems through Active Mobile Sensor Networks and Crowdsourced Data.

The Graduate School Announced Award Recipients for Fall 2014 and Spring 2015, Doctoral Finishing Fellowships: Yaoxian Huang, PhD Candidate in Environmental Engineering; Huang said: “As an atmospheric scientist, I plan to be an environmental researcher and educator. The award for the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools (MAGS) Distinguished Thesis Award: Xu Yang, PhD Candidate in Civil Engineering; Photographs and details of awards and fellowships coordinated by the Graduate School can be found online.

The Mining Journal published a news story about a period of public comment opening on a consultants’ review of progress on recommendations made in the 2000 International Joint Commission report, “Protection of the Waters of the Great Lakes.” One of the consultants reviewing the progress was Michigan Tech Professor Alex Mayer (CEE).

Joan Chadde, director of the Michigan Tech Center for Science & Environmental Outreach, and Neil Hutzler, retired past chair of the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, collaborated with the Foundation for Family Science & Engineering to conduct a STEM Night for a sold-out crowd of 300 teachers from across the country who were attending the 2015 National Science Teachers’ Association STEM Forum & Expo last week in Minneapolis. Chadde and Hutzler are among the co-authors of the Family Engineering Activity & Event Planning Guide published in 2011. Michigan Tech received a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop the guide. Anza Mitchell, president of the Michigan Tech student chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers, assisted with the event.

Daisuke Minakata (CEE), has received a $5,000 research and development grant from Oak Ridge Associated Universities for the project, Coupling Experimental and Theoretical Molecular-Level Investigations into the Effect of Background Natural or Dissolved Organic Matter on the Fate of Degradation of Organic Compounds in Aqueous Phase Advanced Oxidation Processes.

The Michigan Tech Vice President for Research Office announces the Research Execellence Fund Awards. Thanks to the volunteer review committees, as well as the deans and department chairs, for their time spent on this important internal research award process. Research Seed Grant: Zhen “Leo” Liu, CEE Link to full list

Alex Mayer (CEE) has received $92,000 from the University of Texas at El Paso for the first year of a potential five-year project titled “Sustainable Water Resources for Irrigated Agriculture in a Desert River Basin Facing Climate Change and Urban Growth: From Characterization to Solutions.”

The Guardian, a major British newspaper, published an editorial opinion column co-authored by Ali Mirchi, a postdoctoral research associate (CEE). The op-ed examined the environmental challenges that Iran faces.

On March 28, the ABET Board of Directors elected CEE Department alumnus, Wayne R. Bergstrom, Ph.D., P.E., D.GE., as its 2015-16 President-Elect. Dr. Bergstrom has been active in his service to Michigan Tech through his participation on the Civil and Environmental Engineering Professional Advisory Committee.

Assistant Professor Pasi Lautala (CEE), head of Michigan Tech’s Rail Transportation Program, was interviewed on NPR’s Marketplace program that aired Friday, March 20. He talked about the success of US freight rail, which is attracting worldwide attention, and some of the safety challenges that freight rail still faces.

Professor Zhanping You (CEE), a transportation engineering expert and faculty member of the Michigan Tech Transportation Institute, was quoted in an article in the Times Herald of Port Huron, Mich., on why pothole repairs don’t seem to hold.

Trains Newswire published an article about next summer’s Rail and Intermodal Transportation Summer Youth Program.

Senior Research Engineer David Nelson (CEE) and Steve Landry, a railroad engineering student at Michigan Tech, were quoted in a Trains Magazine article about railroad crossing fatalities.

Assistant Professor Pasi Lautala (CEE) was quoted in a New York Times article about safety technology for preventing rail crashes like the fatal one in Valhalla, NY, Feb 5, 2015.

Pasi Lautala (CEE/MTTI) has received $99,997 from the Michigan Department of Transportation for a two-year project, “National University Rail Transportation Center (NURail) Tier 1.”

The Transportation Research Board (TRB) 94th annual meeting, for transportation professionals from around the world, was held in Washington, D.C. January 11-15, 2015. Joining the 12,000 attendees were members of the Michigan Tech Transportation Institute (MTTI). This year’s theme was Corridors to the Future: Transportation and Technology. Read More

The Policy Group on Tradeswomen’s Issues posted a news story and photo on its Facebook page about the seven Michigan Tech women who were chosen to attend the Kiewit Women’s Contruction Leadership Seminar.

Colin Brooks, senior research scientist at the Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI) in Ann Arbor, was interviewed by WILX-TV in Lansing about MTRI’s work with the Michigan Department of Transportation, using drones.

PhD student Divya Kamath (CEE), has been awarded the 2015 MI AWWA Fellowship. Kamath has been working on an AOP project

Tim Colling (CEE/MTTI) and Nick Koszykowski (CEE) have received $110,545 from the Michigan Department of Transportation for a project titled “2015 MERL Development and Support.”

Tim Colling, Gary Schlaff, Luke Peterson and Nick Koszykowski (CEE) have received $723,778 from the Michigan Department of Transportation for “2015 RoadSoft Asset Management System Development & Support.”

Pasi Lautala (CEE/MTTI) and Hamed Pouryousef (CEE) have received $59,106 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison for a research project titled “Evaluating the Use of Operational Management Techniques for Capacity Improvements on Shared-Use Rail Corridors.”

Tim Colling and Christopher Gilbertson (CEE/MTTI) have received $367,180 from the Michigan Department of Transportation for a two-year project titled “Michigan Local Bridge Load Rating Support and Technology Transfer FY 2015-2016.” Tim Colling, John Kiefer and Chris Gilbertson (CEE/MTTI) have received $177,909 from the Michigan Department of Transportation for a project titled “2015 Transportation Asset Management Council Education Program.”

Associated Press wire service published an article about Professor and Chair David Hand’s (CEE) research on using recycled tires to improve road asphalt. Newspapers and broadcast media outlets, including the Detroit News, ran the AP story.

Tim Colling and John Kiefer (CEE/MTTI) have received $99,345 from the Michigan Department of Transportation for “TAMC Activities 2015.” Tim Colling (CEE/MTTI), Gary Schlaff and Nick Koszykowski (CEE) received $264,351 from the Michigan Department of Transportation for the two year project “Implementation of Roadsoft for MDOT Safety Services Unit.”

The Graduate School is pleased to announce that the following students have earned the Doctoral Finishing Fellowship: Rasika Kishor Gawde, PhD candidate in Environmental Engineering, Ruiqiang Song, PhD candidate in Civil Engineering, Yunzhu Zhao, PhD candidate in Environmental Engineering. More information

Undergraduate student Lacey Kaare (CEE) won third place in the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) World Congress Student Essay Contest with her essay titled “Attitudes and the American Way: Barriers to Fully Automated Vehicles.” The essay contest was sponsored by the Southwest Research Institute. Kaare’s winning essay was featured in the final program, and her registration fee for the 2014 ITS World Congress in Detroit was funded by the Southwest Research Institute. In addition, the Michigan Tech Transportation Institute provided Kaare with funding for travel and expenses during the convention. Kaare entered the contest as part of the requirements for an ITS course offered last spring at Michigan Tech in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Zhanping You (CEE) has received $41,308 of $855,680 from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality for the first year of a two-year research and development project, “Low-Emission Asphalt Pavements with Crumb Rubber.”

Martin Auer and Pengfei Xue (CEE) have received $21,052 from Battelle Memorial Institute-US Environmental Protection Agency for a research and development project titled “Lake Erie Phosphorus Modeling.”

Alex Mayer (CEE), Rupali Datta (Bio Sci) and Rod Chimner (SFRES) have received $144,710 from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality for a research and development project titled “Huron Creek Watershed Improvements Phase 1: Reducing Copper Loads from Stamp Sand Deposits in the Keweenaw Peninsula with Permeable Reactive Barriers.”

PI Daisuke Minakata (CEE) was awarded $330,000 from the National Science Foundation for his project, “Coupling Experimental and Theoretical Molecular-Level Investigations to Visualize the Fate of Degradation of Organic Compounds in Aqueous Phase Advanced Oxidation Systems.”

Progressive Railroading magazine featured Michigan Tech’s Rail Transportation Program in an article on universities adding rail education to the curriculum.

PI David Hand (CEE) and Co-PIs Zhanping You and Zeyad Ahmed (CEE) were awarded $336,214 from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality for their project “Scrap Tire Market Development Grant Program: Assessment of Emissions of Crumb Rubber Modified Asphalt.”

Associate Professor Amlan Mukherjee (CEE) is spending his sabbatical year, August 2014 to July 2015, consulting for the National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA) in Washington, D.C, to develop an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) for asphalt mixes. His research, teaching and entrepreneurial efforts focus on integrating life-cycle thinking into the design, construction and maintenance of civil infrastructure systems. He serves on the Federal Highway Administration’s Sustainable Pavements Technological Working Group. He is also a specialty editor for the American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) Journal of Construction Engineering & Management and is currently serving on ASCE’s Digital Project Delivery Committee.

Research by CEE Chair David Hand on treating ballast water was referenced and Gary Fahnenstiel, a research scientist in the GLRC, was quoted extensively in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal article “Park Chief Puts Foot Down on Invasive Species”. Fahnenstiel discusses how ocean-going ships have been importing invasive exotic species into the Great Lakes and the importance of treating ships’ ballast water to prevent further invasions.

Assistant professor, Myounghoon “Philart” Jeon (CLS) presented a project, done with assistant professor Pasi Lautala (CEE), “Driver Response to Various Railroad Grade Crossings and Hazard Detection” at the 2014 Global Level Crossing Safety and Trespass Prevention Symposium (GLXS2014), held at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 3-8 August.

An urban forestry institute for Detroit school teachers has been named one of the US Forest Service’s 2015 Success Stories. The project involving teacher workshops at Belle Isle was coordinated by Joan Chadde of the Western UP Center for Science, Mathematics and Environmental Education at Michigan Tech. Find out more about urban forestry institute for Detroit school teachers

A NASA article about the Landsat 8 satellite and how it is being used for various coastal research features a section about Michigan Tech scientists who are using the satellite data to track the spread of Chladophora, a hair-fine algae that attaches to shallow-water rocks or the shells of dead invasive zebra and quagga mussels. Sometimes storms in the Great Lakes cause the algae to wash off the rocks or shells and cover the beach in green decaying material. Bob Shuchman, co-director of the Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI); Colin Brooks, senior research scientist at MTRI and Professor Marty Auer (BioSci) are working together on the research. See Taking NASA-USGS’s Landsat 8 to the Beach.

Dave Nelson (CEE) and Bill Sproule (CEE) were guest presenters at the three-day “Railway Engineering Education Symposium” (REES2014) at the BNSF Technical Training Center in Overland Park, Kansas last week. The symposium is a bi-annual event that is organized by the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association (AREMA).
Nelson presented a session on “Railway Engineering Design Case Studies” and Sproule did a module on “Intercity Passenger and Urban Rail Transportation” and was a participant on two panels–one on “Rail Program Development” and one on “Student Chapters.” Michigan Tech’ s Rail Transportation Program is recognized as one the leading programs in the country and the Railroad Engineering Activities Club (REAC) was AREMA’s first student chapter. Nelson, Sproule and Pasi Lautala were also members of the Symposium’s planning committee. Also Nelson coordinated the content committee for the event.

PI Pasi Lautala (CEE) and Co-PIs Paul Sanders (MSE), Tim Havens (ECE), Thomas Oommen (GMES) and Myoundhoon Jeon (CLS) have been awarded $113,411 from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, for “NURail – Tier 1.”

Proceedings from the 2013 Community and Partner Workshop Proceedings: Managing Impacts of Global Transport of Atmosphere-Surface Exchangeable Pollutants (ASEPs) in the Context of Global Change are now available online on the project’s webpage.
This project is part of an ongoing NSF-funded project with PI Judith Perlinger (CEE).

Joan Chadde, director of the Michigan Tech Center for Science and Environmental Outreach, was a participating scientist for a bio-inventory for the Keweenaw Land Trust Marsin Monitoring Project, conducted by the Lake Linden-Hubbell High School tenth-grade biology class. The event was held yesterday at the Marsin Center. The students monitored amphibians and insects and brainstormed native landscaping ideas for the KLT.

Pasi Lautala, director of the Michigan Tech Rail Transportation Program, and 11 students from across the campus attended the 2014 Joint Rail Conference in Colorado Springs recently. The conference was jointly sponsored by ASME, ASCE and IEEE. Lautala presented “High Speed Rail Learning System (HSRLS)–Taking Advantage of Online Technologies in Railway Education,” and the students presented their senior design, enterprise and research project findings from the past year.

Jianqiu Zheng, a PhD candidate in the atmospheric sciences, who is under the advisement of Paul Doskey (CEE), recently traveled to the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany to attend the first PhD Conference on Earth System Science. Zheng presented her research on soil emissions of nitrous oxide, which is a greenhouse gas many times more potent than carbon dioxide. She was the only attendee from a US University.

The April/May/June 2014 issue of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) magazine, Coastal Services, includes an article featuring the Great Lakes Research Center’s studies of dangerous coastal currents. The data collected by GLRC scientists will help improve beach safety on the Great Lakes.

Ralph Hodek (CEE), associate professor and director of the Michigan Tech Transportation Institute (MTTI), was sought by Upper Michigan’s Source TV 6 News for his expertise in soil mechanics and foundational engineering in regards this year’s record winter weather. Hodek provided an explanation of the mechanics of pavement heave and ground thaw and the potential damage to area roads which may occur due to the record number of freezing days encountered. A transcript of Hodek’s interview and video clip of the news item can be found at www.uppermichiganssource.com.

John Kiefer, Chris Codere, Christopher Gilbertson and Belle Wirtanen, staff at the Center for Technology and Training (CEE),coordinated and managed the on-site operations of the 2014 Michigan Bridge Conference and Bridge Workshop: Introduction to Element-Level Bridge Inspection, held March 18-19 in Bay City. The event attracted over 200 engineers, inspectors and other bridge construction and maintenance professionals, making it the most attended in its 18-year history. The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering hosted an alumni reception following the Bridge Workshop that was attended by approximately 70 graduates from recent years back to the class of 1952.

Tribal technical assistant program (TTAP) director John Velat (CEE) participated in the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Strategic Planning Committee meeting for the Local and Tribal Technical Assistance Programs (LTAP/TTAP) recently in Atlanta. The FHWA Strategic Planning Committee (SPC), a representative group of Center staff from across the LTAP/TTAP community, serves to analyze current and future trends in the program and advises FHWA on responsive program management. This work was conducted as part of TTAP’s contract with the Federal Highway Administration to advance tribal transportation issues, transportation safety, cultural awareness and tribal self-determination. TTAP serves 64 tribes in 31 Midwestern and Eastern states and cooperates with tribal transportation initiatives nationwide.

The February 2014 issue of the Urban Transportation Monitor, a monthly publication featuring transportation policy and research, published a feature article about Michigan Tech’s research into using drones to monitor roads infrastructure.

Two CEE graduate students traveled with Joan Chadde, education/outreach program coordinator, Center for Science and Environmental Outreach, and presented an activity called “Packaging Bananas” that they helped to develop. The students were Irfan Rasul, graduate research assistant (advisor Pasi Lautala) and Adriano Rothschild, graduate teaching assistant (advisor Jeff Lidicker).

Pasi Lautala (CEE) traveled to Lansing on Feb. 11 to participate in the inaugural meeting of the Commission for Logistics and Supply Chain Collaboration in Lansing. Lautala is the only member from the Upper Peninsula in the seven-member commission appointed by the Governor. The commission is housed within the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and will advise state agencies on freight transportation and supply chain management issues.

Alex Mayer (CEE) has received $151,846 of $295,893 for a four-year research project “Experimental Frameworks for Evaluating the Net Effects of Hydrological Service Payments on Coupled Social-Ecological Systems in Mexico,” from the University of New Hampshire.

PI David Hand, Co-PI Zeyad Ahmed, Co-PI David Perram (CEE) have received a $49,275 grant from the Water Research Foundation for the one-year project, “Removal of Volatile Organic Contaminants (VOCS) from Drinking Water Via Multi-Stage Low Profile Aeration Technology.”

Ralph Hodek (CEE), director of the Michigan Tech Transportation Institute, led the Preparing Your Roads for Heavy Loads session at the Michigan County Engineers Workshop in Manistee on Feb. 11, where he presented his paper “Frost Action and Highways”. The workshop is organized and sponsored by the Michigan Local Technical Assistance Program housed in the Center for Technology and Training. The workshop was the most successful ever with a record attendance of over 150 participants.

The 2014 Michigan County Engineers’ Workshop (CEW), coordinated by the Center for Technology and Training (CTT), part of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department (CEE) and the County Road Association of Michigan, was held February 11-13 in Manistee, Mich. CTT Research Engineer Melanie Kueber Watkins, director Tim Colling, technical writer Shaughn Kern, and office assistant Michelle Reed, managed the on-site operations during the three-day event.

Ralph Hodek (CEE), director of the Michigan Tech Transportation Institute (MTTI), recently participated in the general assembly meeting of the Transportation Engineering and Road Research Alliance (TERRA), in Minneapolis, Minn. The main purpose of the meeting was to select research implantation needs for 2014/2015.
TERRA is a partnership of government, industry, and academia that seeks to advance road research engineering and construction innovation. MTTI is a sponsoring member of TERRA.

MLive, a web-based Michigan news network, and the Grand Rapids Press published an article about Michigan Tech Research Institute scientists and engineers’ work with drones for road maintenance. See MLive.

Kuilin Zhang (CEE/MTTI) has received a $10,184 research grant from the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign for “Impact of High-Speed Passenger Trains on Freight Train Efficiency in Shared Railway Corridors.”

CEE Senior Design Colloquium presented undergraduate senior design research projects from the December 2013 graduating seniors

Michigan Radio, Michigan’s public radio network, broadcast a news story about Professor Alex Mayer’s (CEE) work with students and computer scientists at Michigan Tech to develop smartphone apps that enable citizens to help researchers gather data. See online.

Assistant Professor Pasi Lautala (CEE), director of Michigan Tech’s Rail Transportation Program, addressed a commission meeting in Rhinelander, Wis., talking about the need to demonstrate the potential profitability of freight rail lines. WJFW-TV, the NBC affiliate in Wausau, Wis., broadcast his testimony. See online.

PI Tim Colling and Co-PIs Gary Schlaff, Luke Peterson, and Nick Koszykowski (CEE) have received $719,799 from the Michigan Department of Transportation for “2014 Roadsoft Asset Management System Development and Support.”

Research Universities Partner to Increase the Diversity in Future Faculty Craig Friedrich (MEEM), Shekhar Joshi (Bio Sci) and Chris Wojick (CEE) are co-principal investigators on the project.

PI Tim Colling and Co-PI Nick Koszykowski (CEE) have received $98,317 from the Michigan Department of Transportation for “2014 MERL Development and Support.”

Peace Corps Masters International Environmental Engineering Program graduate Cara Shonsey has published a paper titled, “Quantifying available water supply in rural Mali based on data collected by and from women,” in a special issue of the Journal of Cleaner Production on Water, Women, Waste, Wisdom and Wealth. Her advisor, John Gierke (GMES), co-authored the paper. See online.

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Technical Council on Forensic Engineering has selected the paper “Review of Methods to Assess, Design for, and Mitigate Multiple Hazards,” by Yue Li, Aakash Ahuja and Jamie E. Padgett (CEE) as the Outstanding Paper for 2012 in ASCE Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities. Each year, the ASCE Technical Council on Forensic Engineering selects one paper published in this Journal during the previous calendar year for the Outstanding Paper Award. The paper was cited for the following:

* The greatest number of reader downloads (by far).
* Reviewer comments and ratings.
* Thorough and positive professional response to reviewers following the first round of reviews.
* Discussion received and Author’s Closure.
* Potential influence on codes and practice.

The Detroit Free press covered Judith Perlinger’s (CEE) work with airborne toxins, part of a $1.45 million NSF grant with researchers from MIT, the Desert Research Institute and Boston University.

Zhanping You, Jake Hiller, Dave Watkins (CEE) and Jianping Dong (Math) have received $177,159 from the Michigan Department of Transportation for a 19-month-long research project “Improvement of Michigan Climatic Files in Pavement ME Design.”

An article in Scientific American, “8 Apps That Turn Citizens into Scientists,” discusses the development of Citizen Science mobile apps by faculty members Alex Meyer (CEE) and Robert Pastel (CS). Supported by a grant from National Science Foundation, this interdisciplinary project includes students from Computer Science, Environmental Engineering, Scientific and Technical Communication, and Social Sciences. The article can be found online.

PI Tim Colling, Co-PI Christopher Gilbertson and Co-PI Gary Schlaff (CEE) have received $551,176 for the two-year project, “Bridge Design System Analysis and Modernization.”

Tim Colling, director, and Shaughn Kern, technical writer for the Center for Technology and Training (CTT/CEE), participated in the semi-annual Michigan Transportation Asset Management Conference held on Oct. 24 in Escanaba. The conference is sponsored by the Michigan Transportation Asset Management Council, and brings together more than 60 state, federal and local transportation professionals from around Michigan to learn about the current state of practices for managing pavements and other roadside assets.
As members of the conference planning committee, Colling and Chris Codere, Sr. project manager for CTT, assisted in coordinating the conference. During the event, Colling acted as moderator for the panel discussion Managing Performance–The Leadership Perspective and Kern supervised the audiovisual component.

PI Larry Sutter (MSE), Zhanping You (CEE), and Stan Vitton (CEE) recieved $9,999 from the Michigan Department of Transportation for a one-year project, “2014 Transportation Materials Research Center.”

PI Timothy Colling and Co-Pi’s John Kiefer and Melanie Watkins (CEE) have been awarded $95,139 from the Michigan Department of Transportation for “2014 Transportation Asset Management Council Technical Assistance Activities.”

Tim Colling, John Kiefer and Chris Codere (CEE) have received $150,000 of a $447,130 grant from the Michigan Department of Transportation for a one-year project, “2014 Michigan Local Technical Assistance Program.”

PI David Watkins (CEE) and Co-PI’s Laura Bourgeau-Chavez and Colin Brooks (MTRI) have been awarded $92,298 as part of a potential two-year $181,171 research project from the US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for “Integrated Seasonal Drought Forecast-Adaptive Management System for the Lower Colorado River Basin in Texas.”

PI Zhanping You (CEE) and Co-PI Patricia Heiden (Chem) have been awarded a $200,000 three-year research grant from the National Science Foundation for “SusChEM/Collaborative Research: Fundamental Understanding of Foaming Process Towards a New Warm Mix Asphalt Technology.”

PI Judith Perlinger (CEE/CWS) and Co-PIs Shiliang Wu (GMES/CWS) and Emma Norman (SS/CWS) have been awarded a $1,450,000 research grant from the National Science Foundation for “CNH: Managing Impacts of Global Transport of Atmosphere-Surface Exchangeable Pollutants in the Context of Global Change.”

Daniel Cerminaro (CEE) and Thomas Oommen (GMES) have received $22,000 from the National Science Foundation for a potential three-year research project “Graduate Research Fellowship.”

PI Colin Brooks (MTRI) and Co-Pi’s Thomas Oommen (GMES), Timothy Havens (ECE), and Tess Ahlborn (CEE), have been awarded $240,899 for Evaluating the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for transportation purposes, by MDOT.

Marty Auer (CEE) has received $47,068 from Upstate Freshwater Institute for a twenty-month long research project “Cayuga Lake Bioassays.”

Amlan Mukherjee (CEE) has received $50,000 from the National Science Foundation for a six-month research project “I-Corps: Decision Support Systems for Managers of Civil Infrastructure Systems.”

David Watkins (CEE) has been awarded a $430,497 five-year research grant, “WSC-Category 2 Collaborative: Robust Decision-Making for South Florida Water Resources by Ecosystem Service Valuation, Hydro-Economic Optimization, and Conflict Resolution Modeling” from NSF.

PI Qingli Dai (CEE) and Co-PI Fernando Ponta (MEEM) have been awarded a three-year, $269,012 research grant for “Collaborative Research: Nexus of Simulation, Sensing and Actuation for Aerodynamic Vibration Reduction of Wind Turbine Blades” from NSF.

Jennifer Fuller (CEE) and David Hand (CEE) have been awarded a student fellowship for $42,000 for “Graduate Research Fellowship Program” from NSF.

Timothy Colling (MTTI) and Co-PIs Gary Schlaff (MTTI), Luke Peterson (MTTI) and Nick Koszykowski (MTTI), have been awarded $699,619 for “RoadSoft 2013,” from the Michigan Department of Transportation.

Colling and Co-PIs John Kiefer (MTTI) and Melanie Watkins (MTTI), have received $134,588 for “TAMC Training 2013,” from the Michigan Department of Transportation.
Tim Colling (MTTI) received $14,343 from the Board of Supervisors of Louisiana State University for a one-year project titled “Louisiana Local Agency Asset Management Pilot Support.”

Two Michigan Tech undergraduates, Morgan Owen-Cruise and Megan Dalbec, have been named winners of US Environmental Protection Agency Greater Research Opportunities (GRO) fellowships valued at $48,500 each. Nationwide, 39 of the competitive GRO fellowships were awarded.

Owen-Cruise is a chemistry major. Dalbec is an environmental engineering major with a minor in materials science and engineering.

Associate Professor Tess Ahlborn (CEE) and Co-PI Colin Brooks (Bio Sci/MTRI) have received $243,251 from the Michigan Department of Transportation for a two-year project, “Evaluation of Bridge Decks Using Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) at Near Highway Speeds for Effective Asset Management.”

Pasi Lautala (CEE), Stanley Vitton (CEE) and Gregory Graman (School of Business and Economics) have received $99,470 from the Michigan Department of Transportation for their research, “NURail Center.”

Assistant Professor R. Andrew Swartz (CEE), Brian Barkdoll (CEE) and Colin Brooks (MTRI) have received $798,548, from the US Department of Transportation for research on a 2-year project, “Automated Scour Detection Arrays Using Bio-Inspired Magnetostrictive Flow Sensors.”

Director Timothy Colling (MTTI) Senior Project Manager Gary Sclaff (MTTI) and Principal Programmer Nick Koszykowski (MTTI) have received $89,934 from the Michigan Department of Transportation for “MERL 2013.”

Joan Chadde (CEE) has received a $70,000 research grant from the University of Wisconsin-Madison for “Meeting Transportation Workforce and Education Needs of the 21st Century.”