Barbara S. Minsker holds a B.S. (Cornell University 1986) in operations research and industrial engineering, and Ph.D. (Cornell University 1995) in environmental systems engineering. From 1986 to 1990, she worked as an environmental policy analyst at ICF Incorporated and Wade Miller Associates in Washington, D.C. From 1995 to 1996, Dr. Minsker was a post-doctoral research associate at the University of Vermont's Research Center for Groundwater Remediation Design. She has been on the faculty at the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering since 1996 and is a Faculty Affiliate at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.

Dr. Minsker has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in civil and environmental systems analysis, including introductory systems analysis for civil and environmental engineers, environmental systems analysis, environmental risk assessment and management, uncertainty in environmental and water resources decision making, and optimization methods for engineering design.

Dr. Minsker is a member of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the ASCE Environmental and Water Resources Institute (EWRI), the Association of Ground Water Scientists and Engineers, and the American Society for Engineering Education. She chairs the ASCE/EWRI Task Committee on Long-Term Groundwater Monitoring and is a member of the ASCE/EWRI Groundwater Management Committee, Environmental and Water Resource Systems Committee, and Evolutionary Computation Task Committee. She serves as associate editor for Water Resources Research and is a member of the AGU Groundwater Committee.

Dr. Minsker received the National Science Foundation Early Faculty Career (CAREER) Award in 1998 and the Army Young Investigator Award and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2000. In 2001, she was named a Center for Advanced Study Fellow. She has been an Arthur and Virginia Nauman Faculty Scholar since 2001.

Wen-Tso Liu holds a B.S. (National Technological University of Taipei, Taiwan) in Civil Engineering, an M.S. (Rutgers University, 1988) in Environmental Science, an M.Eng. (University of California at Berkeley, 1992) in Environmental Engineering, and Ph.D. (University of Tokyo, 1995) in Urban Engineering. He has been on the faculty of the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois since 2008.  Dr. Liu served as a professor at National Central University from 1998-2001, and at National University of Singapore from 2001-2008.  He also worked as a post-doctoral scientist at Michigan State University and Northwestern University.

Dr. Liu has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in environmental microbiology, wastewater biotechnology, and current topics in environmental biotechnology.

Dr. Liu is currently a Visiting Professor for Shanghai Jiao Tung University, China since 2005 and for National University of Singapore since 2008.  Dr. Liu’s research awards include the Asian Young Biotechnologist Prize (2005) and National Science Council research award, Taiwan (2000).   He is a member of the American Society of Microbiology, International Society on Microbial Ecology, and International Water Association.  He serves a member of editorial board for several leading journals in Environmental Microbiology (e.g., Applied Environmental Microbiology, Microbial Ecology, and the ISME journal by Nature publisher), and has contributed as a reviewer for more than 15 leading journals.  He also serves as the sectary for IWA technical group in Activated Sludge Population Dynamics.

Through his research, Dr. Liu has worked to improve the understanding, identification and sensing of microorganisms in natural and engineered environments through the use of advanced molecular techniques, and the use/development of "Bio-X" devices that detect RNA, DNA, proteins and microbial cells. He is the leading inventor for T-RFLP (terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism) fingerprinting method published in 1997 and for HOPE (hierarchical oligonucleotide primer extension) in 2007. To better design, improve and optimize treatment processes in the long run, he collaborates closely with process-based researchers to study water and wastewater treatment processes with emphases on microbial diversity, community structure, function and interaction.

Edwin E. Herricks joined the faculty of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in 1975. He received a BA in Zoology and English from the University of Kansas in 1968, an M.S. in Sanitary/Environmental Engineering from The Johns Hopkins University in 1970, and a Ph.D. in Biology from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1973. He was a research and field biologist with Union Carbide Corporation from 1973-75. He is presently a Professor of Environmental Biology in the Environmental Engineering and Science Program and holds affiliate appointments in the Departments of Animal Biology (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences) and Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences (College of Agriculture, Community, and Environmental Sciences) and the Environmental Council.

Dr. Herricks has been an adviser to local, state, and federal government. He has regularly served as an adviser to the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, he is a member of the Science Advisory Board of the Illinois River Coordinating Council, Office of the Illinois Lieutenant Governor, and has served as the Chair of the City of Champaign Environmental Advisory Commission and on the Citizen’s Advisory Board of the Champaign County Forest Preserve District.  Dr. Herricks has also served on several National Research Council panels addressing issues that included non-coal mining impact to the environment, the legacy of radiation problems at Hanford, Wash., management of the Upper Mississippi River Navigation Project and the Corps of Engineers project and planning process.  He was appointed to the Surface Transportation Cooperative Research Advisory Board in 2000.

In his research, teaching, and professional activities Professor Herricks couples an understanding of the environment with engineering-based approaches to management and regulation. As a biologist, he has structured his program on the analysis and interpretation of the effects of contaminants and other environmental alterations on communities of organisms (in both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems). His research analyzes and interprets the effects of environmental change on aquatic and terrestrial species, populations, and communities, with a particular emphasis on the development of methods to improve environmental decision-making and ecologically relevant engineering design. Specific research areas include: (1) development of biological monitoring procedures for environmental decision making, (2) time related consequences of environmental change ranging from stormwater runoff to climate change effects, (3) analysis of organism habitat relationships in streams and wetlands directed to restoration and naturalization, (4) systems analysis of human- natural system interactions including transportation system interactions with wildlife, and (5) development of engineering design approaches that minimize environmental and ecological impact.

Dr. Bond joined the faculty in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in 2003. Since 2007, she is also an Affiliate Professor in Atmospheric Sciences. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in air quality monitoring and modeling.

Dr. Bond is a member of American Geophysical Union and American Association for Aerosol Research, and an Editor at Aerosol Science and Technology. She recently served on a National Academy of Sciences committee regarding the international transport of air pollutants. She holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Washington, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering (UC Berkeley) and an Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences, Civil Engineering and Mechanical Engineering (University of Washington, 2000).

Awards include an NSF CAREER grant (2004-present),  the Arthur and Virginia Nauman Faculty Scholar Award (2006-present), the Xerox Award for Faculty Research (2007), a Center for Advanced Study Fellowship at the University of Illinois (2008), and a NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellowship (2000-2002).