engineering a NEW MARK: CEE Magazine
engineering a
new mark
The next generation of Illinois' civil and environmental leaders are making new marks in engineering across the globe. Bridging legends of the past to innovators of the future, our faculty is advancing computational modeling, machine learning, AI and quantum computing to build the communities of tomorrow, starting today.
Engineering Communities to Adapt to Human Systems
Biological Solutions to Environmental Engineering Challenges
Advancing the Development of Next Generation Materials + Structures
Engineering Communities to adapt to impacts from Human Systems
CEE at Illinois is harnessing AI and quantum computing to improve transportation mobility, air quality, and energy resources. Researchers are optimizing transit accessibility and traffic congestion utilizing autonomous vehicles, monitoring and reducing air pollution, and discovering new applications for electrified transportation as novel power storage assets.
AIR POLLUTION MITIGATION
Air pollution is a factor in millions of deaths every year, and CEE Assistant Professor Chris Tessum and his research group are aiming to stop it. Through model development and the use of machine learning, Tessum is increasing capacity to investigate air quality concerns in the environment from examining emissions and the resultant health impacts all over the world to improving wild fire prediction and response. He believes his research can become a communication tool to bring transparency and clarity to complex air pollution challenges, fueling people’s ability to actively engage in identifying air quality problems and solutions in their communities across the globe.
TRANSPORTATION ACCESSIBILITY + ECONOMICS
Learning from his father, a City Planner in Jefferson County, Alabama, CEE Assistant Processor Lewis Lehe has built a career on collecting and assessing key data metrics to inform city decision-makers on important infrastructure decisions from parking to transit accessibility, as they strive to make smarter, more connected communities. Lehe’s work in the intersection of urban traffic and economics utilizes modeling to improve mass transit efficiency and accessibility, ensuring people stay connected to social, medical and cultural resources, ameliorating personal isolation, and strengthening communities.
APPLYING QUANTUM COMPUTING TO TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
Will we be driving our own cars in 10 years? Perhaps not. Autonomous vehicles have made the leap from the future to the present, and CEE Associate Professor Alireza Talebpour is applying quantum computing to collect data from around the world to measure their impact on the people around them, tracking safety and exploring new ways to optimize transportation. Talebpour believes creativity is the key to unlocking innovation, drawing inspiration from unlikely sources. His research incorporates his education and experiences in nature, arts and photography, exploring the smallest of details in nature to find new applications that can be translated to the increasingly complex transportation systems of today. The combination of creativity and quantum computing allows engineers to evolve new theories through expanded testing capabilities, paving the way for safe, efficient traffic solutions for the future.
SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORTATION ELECTRIFICATION MANAGEMENT
As transportation electrification expands throughout the globe, CEE Assistant Professor Eleftheria Kontou is exploring the transportation energy nexus; how EVs impact not just community economics, logistics, and conservation planning, but also areas of emergency response and preparedness. Applying mathematical and computer modeling, Kontou evaluated evacuation route efficacy to ascertain what route modifications are necessary to ensure all driver types can safely evacuate from events like wildfires and flooding. Hazardous events can also increase demands on the grid, necessitating resilient power sources, and EVs may just provide a solution. Kontou is researching how their nimble deployment capabilities can be leveraged as mobile power assets, especially in extreme weather events when power needs surge. Kontou’s research is vital to creating sustainable mobility infrastructure that effectively protects, supports, and connects the communities of tomorrow.
MULTI-SCALE MODELING FOR AGRICULTURAL SUSTAINABILITY
While CEE Assistant Professor Megan Matthews’ career may have begun in an unlikely place, applying her electrical engineering background to biology has proven to be an asset in her ability to unlock nature’s potential to solve global challenges from food security and agricultural sustainability, to energy diversification and carbon capture and storage. Her research group is currently focused on several projects using nature-based solutions with significant societal implications including: improving carbon capture through plant photosynthesis, reducing fertilizer use through boosting plant metabolism in symbiosis with microbes, increasing sustainable aviation fuel through the use of biomass crops, and creating mobile tools to give farmers access to advanced computer models for supporting crop management decisions.
HARNESSING MICROBIAL POWER THROUGH SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY + ENVIRONMENTAL BIOTECHNOLOGY
CEE Associate Professor Na Wei sees synthetic biology as a powerful tool in the arsenal of environmental engineers, one that she currently wields to take on the challenge of not only maintaining clean water supplies across the globe, but recycling extracted materials for use in other industries. Using AI-driven methods to discover enzymes with favorable properties, Wei has engineered a biocatalyst that degrades plastic polymers in wastewater into their monomer parts. Her work also emphasizes rare earth element recovery, hoping to extract these valuable materials from wastewater with selectively binding biomaterial to meet growing demands for their use in green energy & AI technologies.
OPTIMIZING WASTE-TO-ENERGY CONVERSION
CEE Assistant Professor Ran Mei began his career studying chemical and physical methods of wastewater treatment, but turned his focus to investigating biological possibilities when he realized the greater potential for sustainability. Thus began his search for the most effective wastewater-hungry microorganisms and the conditions under which they thrive, turning wastewater into clean and renewable energy via bioreactors. In addition to this, Mei also investigates microbial evolution: how these tiny organisms and their processes change over time both in the natural world and in the face of the 80,000 new chemicals developed in the last century.
Advancing the development of next generation materials + structures
With the improved efficiency computational tools provide, CEE at Illinois is pushing the boundaries of what’s possible for materials and structures, innovating lighter, stronger, and more complex designs made with sustainability and resilience in mind.
DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE, SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS FOR flexible pavement design
Asphalt is a complex material made up of heterogeneous molecules. As CEE Assistant Professor Ramez Hajj works to develop new and sustainable materials for its production, he relies on computational modeling to account for this inherent molecular complexity and to supplement time-consuming lab tests. With the help of advanced experiments and computation, he evaluates the feasibility of converting organic waste to bio-asphalt binders, using biochars as fillers to stabilize mixtures, and even the possibility of incorporating polymer capsules with self-healing properties. His research addresses every scale, balancing fundamental science and industry needs to inform sustainable and high-quality flexible pavement design.
metallic 3D printing and fluid-structure interactions
CEE Assistant Profesor Jinhui Yan harnesses the power of computation to direct his work on metallic 3D printing and fluid-structure interactions, helping him visualize errors and optimize design without the burden of expensive, time-consuming testing. His multi-physics approach to studying gas-flow processing parameters provides insight into the intense evaporation that occurs during 3D printing, and with numerical modeling, he takes on the challenge of optimizing design of tidal blades used to generate energy in river currents. His next steps? Develop complete digital twins for the printing process that provide real-time assessments and predictions of how a given object will turn out. .
AI evolving at Illinois
CEE at Illinois is continuing to design new, innovative programs that support the integration of AI into CEE practice, addressing AI’s rapid evolution and increasing impact across civil and environmental engineering.
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Civil & Environmental Engineers in the News
Big challenges. Bold solutions. See how CEE engineers are shaping tomorrow's world.
Frederick Lawrence (1938-2025)
- CEE News
- November 25, 2025
Team from U of I and Stanford selected to receive $3M in federal funding for technology to extract critical minerals from wastewater
- CEE News
- November 21, 2025
"The blood cells keeping cities alive" CEE student animates mass transit
- CEE News
- November 13, 2025
2025 CEE Faculty & Staff Recognition Reception
- CEE News
- November 5, 2025
Jebelli's team receives $1M NSF award to develop AI-enabled training program for robotic concrete 3D printing in construction
- CEE News
- October 31, 2025
CEE professor part of collaborative research team awarded NSF grant for innovative household water quality testing
- CEE News
- October 31, 2025