Research Centers

Creating a secure water world requires ensuring safe, sufficient, and clean water access for various needs, including human consumption, agriculture, industry, and ecosystems. This entails understanding, predicting, and managing water in the coupled human-natural systems while addressing compounded risks from weather and water extremes, pollution, and climate change impacts. Ultimately, secure water aims to preserve resources, promote sustainability, build resilience, and ensure fair management for future generations.

Website: https://securewater.illinois.edu/

Ana Pinheiro-Privette
Managing Director
securewater@illinois.edu

The Center of Excellence for Airport Technology is a research center headquartered within CEE at Illinois. CEAT was founded in 1995 as a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Center of Excellence focused on airport pavement issues, and has since broadened to include wildlife issues, anti-icing, and lighting. In 2004, the O'Hare Modernization Program (OMP) initiated a research program through CEAT that targets technical issues related to construction of new and extended runways at O'Hare International Airport. Through these partnerships, the Center is able to collaborate on common research goals and complementary outreach programs.

Jeffery R. Roesler
Director
(217) 333-4816
jroesler@illinois.edu  

The Critical Interface Network for Intensively Managed Landscapes is a follow-up to Intensively Managed Landscapes Critical Zone Observatory (IMLCZO).  The CINet project focuses on the role of natural and man-made “Critical Interfaces” at work in the overall functioning of the landscape resulting from intertwined hydrological, biological, ecological, geological and chemical processes. 

IMLCZO [2013-2021] was an NSF funded multi-institution effort to understand the present-day dynamics of landscapes with significant human induced change in the context of their long-term natural coevolution with soil and biota. An observational network of three sites in Illinois (Upper Sangamon River Basin), Iowa (Clear Creek Watershed) and Minnesota (Minnesota River Basin) that captured the geological diversity of the low-relief, glaciated, and tile-drained landscape allowed for novel scientific and technological advances in understanding the Critical Zone, the region between the top of the trees and bottom of the groundwater (or bedrock). 

Website: criticalzone.org/cinet

Praveen Kumar
Director and Lead PI
(217) 333-4688
kumar1@illinois.edu

The Extreme Wind Resilience Center (EWRC) is a multi-disciplinary center that works to mitigate the impact of extreme wind events such as tornadoes, hurricanes and derechos, and build community resilience to the disasters they cause. The EWRC is a joint effort between the departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Atmospheric Sciences, leveraging world-class expertise from multiple disciplines.

Franklin T. Lombardo
Co-Director
(217) 265-7556
lombaf@illinois.edu

The FGI is an industry-sponsored institute advancing the use of fabricated geomembranes through Education, Research, and Technology Transfer. Fabricated geomembranes are all geomembranes that can be factory fabricated into panels and deployed in the field.  Fabricated geomembranes are used for a variety of applications including floating pond/reservoir covers, potable water applications, landfills, golf course water features, industrial waste ponds, secondary containment structures, canals, mining, and waste water and water containment.  The Institute is funded by about 30 members consisting of manufacturers, fabricator/installers, raw material suppliers, and associate members in related industries. 

Website: https://www.fabricatedgeomembrane.com/
Email: fabricatedgeomembrane@gmail.com  

Timothy D. Stark
Professor
(217) 333-7394
tstark@illinois.edu

Located in nearby Rantoul, Ill., the Illinois Center for Transportation (ICT) is an innovative partnership between the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The ICT builds on the experience of renowned experts in transportation and related fields at the U of I, IDOT, and other universities by providing the appropriate tools and support required for objective research. The ICT facilitates the development and timely implementation of cost-effective technologies that improve safety and reliability, reduce congestion and impact on the environment, optimize the utilization of the state transportation infrastructure, and maximize the return from taxpayers’ dollars.

Watch a video about ICT

Website: https://ict.illinois.edu/

Imad Al-Qadi
Director
(217) 265-0427
alqadi@illinois.edu

The MAE Center started as one of three national earthquake engineering research centers established by the National Science Foundation and its partner institutions and has since expanded its focus to consider multiple hazards around the world. MAE Center's mission is to develop through research, and to disseminate through education and outreach, new integrated approaches necessary to minimize the consequences of future natural and human-made hazards. Core research is separated into the following five thrust areas: Multi-hazard Analysis, Consequence-based Risk Management Framework, Engineering Engines, Social and Economic Sciences, and Information Technology.

Website: http://mae.cee.illinois.edu/

Paolo Gardoni
Director
(217) 333-5103
gardoni@illinois.edu

For more than a century, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been the leading academic institution in rail transportation engineering in North America. RailTEC recognizes the expanding importance of rail transportation to the economy, to society and to a safe and sustainable environment, and is committed to further growth and development of its teaching and research activities in support of the nation’s need for talented young minds and new technologies for this vital transportation mode. 

Website: https://railtec.illinois.edu/

Christopher Barkan
Executive Director
(217) 244-6338
cbarkan@illinois.edu

LB Frye
Research Program Coordinator
(217) 244-4999
lbfrye@illinois.edu