Page 21 - Penn State Civil and Environmental Engineering Magazine

FACULTY NEWS
Xiaofeng Liu, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, received the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) State-of-the-Art Civil Engineering Award. The award comes as a result of Liu’s work as the lead editor and co- writer of ASCE’s book, Computational Fluid Dynamics: Applications in Water,
Wastewater, and Stormwater Treatment. Liu also received the Harry West Teaching Award from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, intended to advance the department’s continuing efforts in support of the scholarship of teaching and learning. Liu will use the award to develop an open and living textbook for the teaching of modern computing techniques to civil and environmental engineering students.
Bruce Logan, Evan Pugh Professor in Engineering and the Kappe Professor of Environmental Engineering in the College of Engineering, was admitted to the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), one of 29 foreign members admitted in 2019. Logan is believed to be the first Penn State faculty member admitted to
the CAE, which serves as an independent advisory board to the central and local Chinese governments regarding the direction of engineering research and development. Logan also is one of two Penn State faculty members who have joined the leadership team of the Institutes
of Energy and the Environment (IEE), and he was named a Web of Science Group 2019 Highly Cited Researcher. Logan is highly regarded for his research focusing on developing sustainable water infrastructures through renewable energy technologies, like the microbial fuel cell.
Lauren McPhillips, assistant professor
in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, received the 2020 Best Paper Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers Journal of Sustainable Water in the Built Environment.
McPhillips received the award along with two faculty from Cornell University for their paper, “Nutrient Leaching and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Grassed Detention and Bioretention Stormwater Basins.” McPhillips joined Penn State in 2018.
Brian Naberezny has been promoted to assistant teaching professor. Naberezny joined the department in 2015 as an instructor of land surveying. He received a bachelor’s degree in surveying from Penn State and a master’s degree in spatial information science and engineering from the University of Maine. Prior to coming
to Penn State University Park, Naberezny worked for six years as an instructor in surveying engineering at Penn State Wilkes-Barre.
Rajesh Paleti, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, has been appointed to serve on the Statistical Methods committee and the Travel Behavior and Values committee by the Transportation Research Board (TRB). While serving on the committees, Paleti will help foster innovative research in the
transportation community by soliciting calls for papers on emerging research themes, reviewing submissions for the annual TRB conference, and organizing special workshops or conferences.
Farshad Rajabipour was promoted
to full professor. A Penn State faculty member since August 2009, he received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Sharif University of Technology in Iran and both a master’s and doctoral degree in civil engineering from Purdue University. Prior to joining Penn State,
Rajabipour was an assistant professor at the University of Hawaii and a postdoctoral scholar at Purdue University. His research focuses on synthesis, characterization,
and performance enhancement of new and existing cementitious materials that are used for infrastructure and building applications.
Nathaniel Warner, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, will develop new methods of recording water quality to better understand salt pollution, thanks to a prestigious National Science Foundation Early Career (CAREER)
award. Warner’s project is titled, “Novel
Water Quality Monitors and Indicators of Salinization to Define SALTSCAPES.
CEE NEWSLETTER • VOLUME 36, 2020 21