Nine faculty members honored as CEE Excellence fellows, scholars
12/17/2012
Honorary titles given in recognition of the distinction of these faculty members and include financial resources allocated in support of their educational and research programs.
Written by
Yeh Center
Nine members of the CEE at Illinois faculty have been named CEE Excellence Faculty Fellows or CEE Excellence Faculty Scholars. The honorary titles recognize the distinction of these faculty members and include financial resources allocated in support of their educational and research programs.
“The faculty in our top-ranked department are all exceptional in their respective fields,” said Professor and Head Amr S. Elnashai. “To stand out in such distinguished company is a major accomplishment, recognized by the awarding of these Fellow and Scholar positions.”
The group was selected by the members of the CEE at Illinois Awards and Recognitions Committee, accepted by Elnashai and approved by Interim Dean of the College of Engineering Michael B. Bragg. CEE Professor Imad Al-Qadi, head of the Awards and Recognitions Committee, said that the selection of these faculty members indicates their outstanding achievements and contributions to the advancement of knowledge in civil and environmental engineering.
“These faculty are passionate about their work,” Al-Qadi said. “Their diverse research and interdisciplinary efforts foster an academic environment of growth and innovation. For our students, this means that they are being educated by some of the most outstanding faculty in this field.”
Those honored as CEE Excellence Faculty Fellows are:
Dr. Andrawes teaches graduate and undergraduate courses related to the structural behavior and design of concrete. His research interests are primarily in the areas of structural dynamics, earthquake engineering, bridge engineering, seismic retrofit of structures, application of innovative and smart materials in structures subjected to natural and man-made hazards, constitutive modeling of shape memory alloys under extreme dynamic loads, passive and active control of structures, large-scale experimental testing, and nonlinear finite element methods.
Dr. Fahnestock teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in behavior and design of steel structures. He has research interests in earthquake engineering, innovative structural systems, steel structures, progressive collapse mitigation, and large-scale experimental evaluation of structural components and systems.
Dr. Lopez-Pamies teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in methods of structural analysis, mechanics of solids, homogenization, composite materials and polymers. His research interests are in the mechanics and physics of heterogeneous materials with a particular emphasis on soft-matter systems. He focuses on the development of mathematical theories to describe, explain, and predict the macroscopic behavior and stability of these materials directly in terms of their microscopic behavior.
Dr. Nguyen teaches graduate and undergraduate classes in environmental engineering, with an emphasis on physico-chemical processes for water and wastewater treatments. Her research goal is to develop conceptual models that aid in assessing the human and ecological risks associated with biological contaminants in subsurface environments and water treatment systems.
Those honored as CEE Excellence Faculty Scholars are:
Dr. Duarte teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in methods of structural analysis, structural mechanics, analysis and mechanics of plates and shells, and advanced finite element methods. His research interests include computational mechanics, three-dimensional computational fracture mechanics, multi-scale modeling and analysis of polycrystalline materials.
Dr. LaFave teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the area of structural design, including courses on the behavior, design, and assessment of reinforced concrete, structural steel, and prestressed concrete building, bridge, and ballpark structures. He has a primary research interest in the experimental behavior and analytical modeling of structural connections and joints.
Dr. Liu has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in water quality control, biological principles in environmental engineering, environmental microbiology, wastewater biotechnology, and current topics in environmental biotechnology. His main research interests focus on the microbial ecology and molecular microbiology aspects of water and wastewater treatment processes.
Dr. Olson teaches an undergraduate course in geotechnical engineering and a graduate course onin situ testing and field measurements. His research interests include: liquefaction of level and sloping ground, paleoseismology and paleoliquefaction, soft ground engineering, in situ testing, geosynthetics, and instrumentation.
Dr. Song teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in the areas of engineering risk and uncertainty, decision and risk analysis, structural reliability, system reliability, random vibrations, and probabilistic loads on structures. He has research interests in structural reliability, performance and reliability of complex systems, and random vibrations with applications to earthquake engineering and infrastructure systems subjected to natural and man-made hazards.
Additional faculty within the department who hold Faculty Scholar or Fellow titles are:
Professor Christopher P.L. Barkan, Krambles Faculty Fellow
Professor William G. Buttlar, Narbey Khachaturian Faculty Scholar
Associate Professor Ximing Cai, Ven Te Chow Faculty Scholar in Water Resources
Professor Khaled El-Rayes, William E. O’Neil Faculty Scholar
Professor Youssef Hashash, John Burkitt Webb Endowed Faculty Scholar
Associate Professor Daniel A. Kuchma, Burton and Erma Lewis Faculty Scholar
Professor David A. Lange, Narbey Khachaturian Faculty Scholar
Professor Liang Y. Liu, William E. O’Neil Faculty Scholar
Professor Arif Masud, Robert H. Dodds Faculty Scholar
Professor Barbara S. Minsker, Nauman Faculty Scholar
Yanfeng Ouyang, Paul F. Ken Endowed Faculty Fellow
Jeffery R. Roesler, IL-American Concrete and Pavement Association Faculty Scholar
Associate Professor Timothy J. Strathmann, Vernon L. Snoeyink Faculty Scholar
Professor Erol Tutumluer, Paul Fraser Ken Faculty Scholar
Charles J. Werth, Arthur and Virginia Nauman Faculty Scholar