Page 20 - Penn State Civil and Environmental Engineering Magazine

FACULTY NEWS
Award&s Recognitions
Rachel Brennan, associate professor of Caitlin Grady, assistant professor of civil environmental engineering, was selected and environmental engineering and research for Drexel University’s Executive Leadership associate in the Rock Ethics Institute, will
in Academic Technology, Engineering, and examine the influences and interconnections Science (ELATES at Drexel) program. This between food, energy, and water systems, one-year national leadership development thanks to a prestigious National Science program is designed to advance senior Foundation Early Career (CAREER) award. women faculty into effective institutional Grady’s project is titled, “Ethical Implications
State College of Engineering Sustainability Council.
Eric Chase, researcher at the Center for Dirt Systematics New Faculty Award by the Council and Gravel Road Studies, was promoted to of University Transportation Centers. Presented assistant teaching professor. Chase joined annually to a tenure-track faculty member Penn State in 2014 after three years as a in transportation education, the award researcher with Matson & Associates. recognizes outstanding teaching and research
Faculty
leadership roles within their schools and universities. Brennan of Connected Critical Infrastructure in the Food-Energy-Water is a co-director of the Drawdown Scholars Research Experience Nexus.”
for Undergraduates Program at Penn State, director of the Penn
State Water-Energy-Food Nexus Initiative, and chair of the Penn
Patrick Fox, John A. and Harriette K. Shaw Professor of Civil Engineering and head of the department, was promoted to president of the Geo-Institute (G-I), one of nine specialty institutes of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Prior to assuming the role of president, Fox completed a one-year term as vice president. He has been a member of the
G-I since its inception and has served on the board of governors since 2014.
Christopher Gorski, associate professor of environmental engineering, was named a fellow for “Energy 2100,” a multi-year initiative to harness Penn State’s vast and wide-ranging activity in the area of renewable energy research. Gorski’s research interests include environmental redox chemistry, aquatic geochemistry, environmental electrochemistry,
environmental mineralogy, salinity gradient energy, capacitive mixing, mineral transformation reactions, contaminant fate in groundwater systems, the role of minerals in organic carbon cycling and hydraulic fracturing.
contributions to the transportation field. Guler’s research interests include multimodal traffic operations, infrastructure asset management, and traffic control for autonomous and connected vehicles.
Michael Hillman, L. Robert and Mary L. Kimball Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, will develop new computational methods to simulate how materials and structures fracture, thanks to a National Science Foundation Early Career (CAREER) award. Hillman’s project
is titled, “A Hybrid Local-Nonlocal Peridynamics Framework to Model Failure Across Deformations
and Strain Rates.”
Li Li was promoted to full professor. She joined the department as a faculty member in 2016 after spending time as an assistant professor
in Penn State’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. Li’s interests include water quality modeling, watershed hydrogeochemistry, reactive transport, and contaminant transport and fate. Li also received the Penn State
Engineering Alumni Society (PSEAS) Outstanding Research Award, which recognizes and rewards outstanding engineering researchers for accomplishments in advancing the frontiers of knowledge.
20 CEE NEWSLETTER • VOLUME 36, 2020
Ilgin Guler, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, was recently named the recipient of the 2020 Cambridge