Category: News

Undergraduate Student Awards

Nicole Bloom Award for Environmental Sustainability

This award is made annually to an undergraduate civil or environmental engineering student who has demonstrated leadership, passion, and activism for effecting environmental sustainability at the local, national, or global level.

Brian Goldberg has been selected for the 2022 Nicole Bloom Award – Brian is the current co-president of the Green Campus Enterprise. Brian was nominated for this award by Robert Handler, advisor for the Green Campus Enterprise and adjunct faculty in the CEGE Department.  The Green Campus Enterprise works to design and assess projects that could have a meaningful impact on the environmental footprint of the Michigan Tech campus. Brian has been instrumental in developing new campus projects for the Green Campus Enterprise.  His leadership has helped move the Green Campus Enterprise in the right direction.

The Nicole Bloom award is accompanied by the Pati and Soumitri Reddy $1000 endowed scholarship.

Department Scholar

Thomas Pastell was selected to represent the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering as our 2022 Department Scholar and to be considered for the Provost’s Award for Scholarship.   Thomas is civil engineering major that exemplifies the intellectual curiosity and creativity that are the hallmarks of a high achieving student and scholar, additionally, he is extremely conscientious, honest, and hardworking.   Thomas is captain of the Steel Bridge team and he is using his steel bridge activities to participate in the Built World Enterprise.   He is also a trailblazer as he thought to combine the two experiential learning activities. 

The Department Scholar recognition is accompanied by a $500 scholarship.

David W. Hand Environmental Process Engineering Award

This award is named after Professor Emeritus David Hand who designed the environmental engineering process lab and taught the class for over 15 years. Dr. Hand is internationally known for his expertise in water treatment.

This award recognizes a team of students from the CEE 4509 capstone environmental engineering class for: outstanding technical skills in the laboratory, outstanding teamwork and professionalism, effective oral and written communications, and excellence in safety protocol as recognized by your peers and supported by the instructor.

This year there were two teams that Dr. Jennifer Becker and Dr. Eric Seagren found best embodied the spirit of this award and both will be recognized.

Each team member will receive a $100 scholarship from the CEE Department.

Graduate Student Awards

Danielle Ladwig Award for Graduate Excellence

The Danielle Ladwig Award is made annually to a graduate-level student in civil or environmental engineering in recognition of outstanding achievement in academics, research, and service, in memory of our friend and colleague, Danielle Ladwig. 

This year Rose Daily was selected for the 2022 Danielle Ladwig Award.  She was nominated for the award by Joan Chadde who highlighted her admirable record of service accomplishments.  Rose has been especially active in promoting sustainable solutions for campus and the local community.  She has been involved in numerous ways with outreach and has presented to Grade 4-12 students through the Water Festival and the Lake Superior Youth Symposium as well as career path presentations on environmental engineering for local high school students.   In the past academic year, Rose has been expanding her expertise in sustainable systems at Instituto Monteverde in Costa Rica.  There she has been working on a project to construct a rainwater collection system for a local K-12 school (Monteverde Friends School) and designing a constructed wetland to treat all of the grey water leaving another local K-12 school (Cloud Forest School).  Rose was the recipient of an NSF GRFP Fellowship which has funded her work in Costa Rica.

This award is accompanied by the Pati and Soumitri Reddy $1000 endowed fellowship.

Wilbur Haas Graduate Research Excellence Award

The Graduate Research Excellence Award is made annually to a graduate-level student in civil or environmental engineering to recognize outstanding student scholarship and research contributions.

This year Dongzhao Jin and Yunxiang Ma have both been selected for recognition with the 2022 Graduate Research Excellence Award.  The quality of their research and publications is very deserving of recognition.   

Dongzhao (Kobe) Jin is a civil engineering doctoral candidate advised by Dr. Zhanping You.  He is researching sustainable asphalt pavements.  To date, his research has led to a number of papers including 15 published peer-reviewed journal papers, 2 conference proceedings, and 1 under-review paper. His strong track record is equivalent to those of many assistant professors in well-known institutions. In addition to his publications, he has also been very active to help seek funding and preparing proposals for my research group.  He is enthusiastically preparing himself to become a future researcher to develop sustainable construction materials. His efforts in teaching made him earn the Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award in 2020. He also received the 2022 Graduate Student Government Exceptional Student Scholar Award.

Yunxiang Ma is a civil engineering doctoral candidate advised by Dr. Qingli Dai.  He is researching the mechanical behavior of CLT walls and wind and seismic performance of CLT shear wall structures. Mr. Ma has dedicated his research to developing the research results on performance evaluation of CLT panels and resilient CLT shear wall structures. His research has resulted in 8 journal papers, 2 under second-review papers, and 1 to-be-submitted manuscript. It is noted that he has published papers in several high-impacted journals (in our field) including the Journal of Cleaner Production (IF: 7.246), the Journal of Construction and Building Materials (IF: 4.419), and ASCE Journal of Structure Engineering (IF: 2.528). These three journals are the most highly rated in the field of construction materials and structural engineering, respectively. He has also worked collaboratively with the scientists in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest product Lab and Colorado School of Mines for different research projects.  He is the recipient of the Graduate School Finishing Fellowship and the 2022 Department Outstanding Scholarship Award.

This award is accompanied by a $1000 Wilbur Haas Memorial Fellowship.

Department Citizenship Award

The Department Citizenship Award recognizes a faculty and staff member that ‘goes the extra mile whether it be in representing the Department, helping colleagues, or participating at events.  The award is decided by the Department Chair and is accompanied by a $1000 to a faculty IRAD or staff extra compensation.

This was a tough decision as so many have stepped up to ensure our teaching, research and service activities excelled during the last year, despite shrinking budgets, colleague departures, and challenges created because of COVID. 

Jeffery Hollingsworth is being recognized for his incredible service this year. Jeffery is recognized for stepping up following a sudden departure of a faculty member, filling in for a faculty member who was having health problems, and for serving on the faculty search committee. In addition to all that, Jeffery has actively participated in the recruitment process, kept up with binder changes on behalf of the geospatial program, leading the departmental assessment activities, and is participating in teacher and K-12 outreach events this summer.  Thank you Jeffery for your service to your colleagues, our students, and prospective students.

Due to the sudden departure of Dave Perram and the retirement of Chris Wojick, a huge void was created in the CEGE safety program.  Kiko (aka Henrique de Melo e Silva) is receiving the Departmental Citizen Award for willingly stepping up to fill the vacancy and subsequently leading safety activities at the college and university level.  Thank you for being willing to grow in taking on this role.

Student Voted Awards

Faculty of the Year – and GTA of the Year

The CEGE Department has two awards that are voted on by the departmental students, the GTA of the Year and the Faculty of the Year Award.  We appreciate the work of Chi Epsilon and their advisor, Stephen Morse, for conducting the voting.  

The Faculty of the Year award will recognize two faculty – the top voted faculty from the Civil/Geospatial Engineering specialties and the top voted faculty from the Environmental/Water Resources Engineering specialties.  This award will be accompanied by a $1000 transfer to the faculty IRAD index.

Stan Vitton

Dr. Stan Vitton joined the faculty of the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering in 1994.  Over the years he has shared his knowledge with CEGE students on a wide variety of engineering topics as well as his industrial engineering experience with Shell Oil.  He has instructed numerous courses in the geotechnical engineering specialty.  His research has been in the area of geotechnical materials and during his twenty-eight years at Michigan Tech, he had 31 peer-reviewed publications, 20 peer-reviewed conference proceedings, 27 reports, 4 book chapters, 61 professional presentations, 2 U.S. and international patents, and a total research funding of $6.3 million with $2.3 million directly attributed to Dr. Vitton.   In June 2022, Stan will retire from the CEGE Department.

Noel Urban

Dr. Urban joined the faculty of the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering in 1995.  His teaching interests are in the environmental engineering domain and include: Environmental Engineering Chemical Processes, Surface Water Quality Engineering, and Global Biogeochemistry.  He has an active research program and has interests in wetland biogeochemistry, sediment diagenesis, and the environmental impact and fate of pollutants.

GTA of the Year Award

The GTA of the Year award recognizes the top voted graduate teaching assistant from all the Department’s specialty areas.  This award will be accompanied by a $500 fellowship.

Tyler LeMahieu is the 2022 GTA of the year. He was a GTA for CEE 3620, Water Resources Engineering.