CEE in the News

Majumder Receives Outstanding Student Paper Award from AGU
The Hydrology Section of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) has named Maia Majumder, E12, a recipient an Outstanding Student Paper Award for her paper "Water Quality vs. Sanitation Accessibility: What is the most effective intervention point for preventing cholera in Dhaka, Bangladesh?" that she presented at the AGU fall meeting in San Francisco. [posted 5/3/12]

Baise Given Faculty Teaching and Mentor Award
At the Graduate Studies Award Ceremony on April 27, 2012, Associate Professor Laurie Baise received the School of Engineering's Faculty Teaching and Mentoring Award. This award recognizes faculty members who have demonstrated outstanding support of graduate students from course completion through research and post-degree placement. [posted 4/27/12]

Joanna Stowell Wins SAME Boston Award
Joanna Stowell, E14, is the recipient of a scholarship from the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) Boston Post. The award is given annually to an academically deserving civil and environmental engineering student at Tufts University and consists of a certificate and monetary award. [posted 4/19/12]

River Street Bridge Construction Featured in The New York Times
On April 13, students from the Tufts American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) chapter visited the construction site for replacement of the River Street Bridge over the MBTA/Commuter Rail in Mattapan, Mass. The tour was led by Professor of the Practice Brian Brenner who is the faculty advisor for the group and also lead structural designer on the project, through his work at Fay, Spofford & Thorndike. The River Street bridge was constructed using rapid bridge techniques. Over the weekend, the old bridge was demolished and the new span rolled into place using self-propelled modular transport (SPMT) units. SPMT are essentially large flat-bed vehicles on an assemblage of wheels with computer control for position and vibration. River Street was open for traffic on the new bridge after a closure of only three days, in comparison to a typical closure period of a year or more using conventional construction methods. The New York Times highlighted this successful project and the new rapid construction methods. [posted 4/18/12]

Leticia Lopez-Benitez and Kelvin Manuel Perez Macario Honored at MAES Boston
On Monday, April 23, 2012, students Leticia Lopez-Benitez (E14) and Kelvin Manuel Perez Macario (E12) will be honored at the 2012 Latino Science & Engineering Awards Celebration. Engineers Leiny Garcia (ECE14) and Yorman Garcia (ECE12) and psychology student Clarissa A. Rivas (A12) will also be honored at this event. [posted 4/10/12]

Masoud Sanayei and Brian Brenner Featured in Structure Magazine
The National Council of Structural Engineers Associations published the research of Professor Masoud Sanayei in Structure magazine. Sanayei, Professor of the Practice Brian Brenner and collaborators have implemented a structural health monitoring system that incorporates more than 200 sensors on the Vernon Avenue bridge in Barre., Mass. [posted 2/10/12]

Grant Garven Featured in TuftsNow
Grant Garven, a professor of geology in the School of Arts and Sciences and adjunct professor of civil and environmental engineering, is working with the Tufts Facilities Services Department to transform one of his 700-foot-deep observation wells into a geothermal well, using the steady temperature of the Earth to heat and cool a classroom in nearby Lane Hall. Read more in Tufts Now. [posted 1/18/12]

Johnson Wins 2012 Max O. Urbahn Award
Eric S. Johnson, E12, is this year's recipient of the Max O. Urbahn, F.A.I.A. Scholarship from the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) New York City Post. The award is given annually to an academically deserving civil and environmental engineering student at Tufts University and consists of a certificate and monetary award. (see photo on left) [posted 12/16/11]

Tufts Structural Health Monitoring Research in RAI Magazine
The Vernon Avenue Bridge in Barre, Mass., is one of the first "work horse" bridge projects in the country to implement a structural health monitoring (SHM) system, incorporating more than 200 sensors. Read more about the collaborative SHM research of Professor Masoud Sanayei, Professor of the Practice Brian Brenner, and engineers from UNH and Geocomp in RAI magazine. [posted 12/13/11]

Vogel Featured in The Atlantic
Professor Richard Vogel was featured in the "Life" section of The Atlantic online. Read Professor Vogel's answers to "9 ½ Questions" in which he talks about urbanization as an important sustainability trend and the politicization of science. [posted 11/28/11]

Islam Wins NSF Grant for Research Coordination Network
Professor Shafiqul Islam received a Research Coordination Network (RCN) grant from the National Science Foundation to create a global network of water professionals who want to share research and field-based experience as part of an effort to promote a greater understanding of the dynamics of water diplomacy. [posted 10/27/11]

CEE Alumna Checks Washington Monument for Structural Damage
Tufts alumna Emma Cardini (Francis), E01, EG09, was among the engineers who inspected the Washington Monument to check for earthquake damage. Cardini has rappelled down columns on Panama's Bridge of the Americas, dangled from rope inside the Old South Church in Boston and inspected the Gothic spires at the top of Chicago's Tribune Tower. [posted 10/6/11]

Predictive Power of Soft Materials Modeling
Researchers, including Associate Professor Luis Dorfmann and Research Associate Professor Robert Peattie in biomedical engineering are building flexible models to calculate the odds that potentially fatal abdominal aneurysms will rupture. [posted 9/29/11]

Becker Awarded EPA STAR Fellowship
Matthew Becker, a doctoral candidate in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering, was awarded a 2011 Environmental Protection Agency STAR (Science to Achieve Results) fellowship to study fate and transport of engineered nanomaterials in porous media. Engineered nanotechnology has become attractive in many industries because of the unique properties of compounds in their nanoparticle forms. However, despite the increase in production and use, potential environmental and public health impacts of nanoparticles are still unclear. The goal of Matthew's research is to develop models to more effectively predict their mobility in geochemically heterogeneous porous media to assess the potential impact of nanomaterials on groundwater resources. [posted 9/9/11]

Research Challenges Global Warming's Link to Cholera Outbreak
Professor Shafiqul Islam's examination of the world's largest river basins found nutrient-rich and powerful river discharges led to spikes in the blooms of plankton associated with cholera outbreaks. These increased discharges often occur at times of increased temperature in coastal water, suggesting that predicting global warming's potential temperature effect on cholera will be more complicated than first thought, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. [posted 8/11/11]

Chapra Gives Keynote on Public Health Engineering
In late July, Professor Steven Chapra visited South Korea where he gave a keynote address on "Water Security and Cities of the Future" at the Korean Environment Institute's International Water Symposium. Chapra spoke about Tufts' efforts related to public health engineering. In particular, he described the development and application of mathematical models to forecast the evolution of waterborne epidemics in heavily urbanized river systems. During his visit, he also gave a seminar in Seoul to K-water (Korea's counterpart to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation) and conducted a water-quality modeling workshop at Chungnam National University in Daejeon. [posted 8/5/11]

Gute Participates in Environmental Justice Thought Leaders Meeting
Associate Professor David M. Gute was an invited participant at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) meeting to discuss potential revisions to the existing "Strategic Elements for Environmental Justice" strategy, which sets the goals of the agency in terms of environmental justice. The July 22, 2011 meeting was convened by Dr. J. Nadine Gracia, Chief Medical Officer, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, and featured representatives from DHHS agencies including the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among the invitees were a national group of prominent community-based stakeholders and seminal academic contributors to scholarship focused on environmental justice including Dr. Beverly Wright of Dillard University, New Orleans and Professor Robert Bullard of Clark University, Atlanta. [posted 7/27/11]

Hines Wind Technology Testing Center Featured in Civil Engineering Magazine
The ASCE's Civil Engineering magazine featured an article by Professor of the Practice Eric Hines and Mysore Ravindra, chairman of LeMessurier Consultants, about the recently completed Wind Technology Testing Center (WTTC) located in Charlestown, Mass. This facility is the largest of its kind in the world and will play a major role in the emerging American offshore wind industry. The project is run by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (CEC) in cooperation with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) with a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
[posted 7/15/11]

Pennell Receives SERDP Funding for Remediation Research
Professor and Chair Kurt Pennell, Research Assistant Professor Natalie Capiro, and collaborator Frank Leoffler at the University of Tennessee, have received funding from SERDP to study the "Secondary Impacts of In Situ Remediation on Groundwater Quality and Post-treatment Management Services." Although substantial progress has been achieved in the remediation and management of hazardous waste sites at Department of Defense (DoD) installations, many sites contain recalcitrant contaminants, such as chlorinated solvents, often in complex hydrogeologic settings. For these problematic sites, significant amounts of the contaminant mass (>10%) are likely to remain even after aggressive source zone treatment. [posted 7/12/11]

Islam's Research on Cholera Outbreak in Huffington Post
Professor Shafiqul Islam's research on remote satellite imaging and predicting cholera outbreak was featured in an article in the Huffington Post. In a study published in the May issue of Water Resources Research, Islam and his colleagues describe how large-scale environmental conditions can be conducive to the initiation, transmission and propagation of cholera. [posted 7/6/11]

Chapra Elected ASCE Fellow
Professor Steven Chapra, Louis Berger Chair in Computing and Engineering, has been elected a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). This prestigious honor is held by fewer than 4 percent of ASCE members. Fellows are practitioners, educators, mentors, and, most of all, leaders. They have distinguished careers that have contributed significantly to the civil engineering profession. The accomplishments of Fellows have left their marks on their communities, society, and future engineering professionals. [posted 5/26/11]

Pennell Delivers Keynote at Remediation Conference
Professor and Chair Kurt Pennell delivered a keynote lecture on "Thermal Treatment: Chemical Reactivity and Combined Remedies" at the RemTEC Summit conference, on advancing the environmental science and collaborating with remediation industry, held in Chicago on May 16-19, 2011. [posted 5/23/11]

St. Vincent Awarded PEO Scholar Award
Graduate student Allison St. Vincent has been researching ultrafine particles in air pollution as part of the Community Assessment of Freeway Exposure and Health (CAFEH) initiative, led by Professor Doug Brugge at the Tufts School of Medicine and John Durant, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Her work has already earned her numerous accolades, including an EPA STAR Graduate Fellowship and a P.E.O. Scholar Award from the Philanthropic Educational Organization, one of the pioneer societies for women, which provides educational awards for women pursuing a doctoral level degree or are engaged in postdoctoral research. [posted 5/9/11]

Kosinski Wins Presidential Award for Citizenship and Public Service
Doctoral candidate Karen Kosinski received a 2011 Presidential Award for Citizenship and Public Service for her work to sustainably implement a primary prevention of urinary schistosomiasis in the Eastern Region of Ghana. Her doctoral committee is chaired by David Gute, and includes Professors John Durant (CEE), Jeanine Plummer, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Dr. Miguel Stadecker, Tufts Sackler School of Biomedical Sciences, and Kwabena M. Bosompem, Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, Legon, GHANA. [posted 5/5/11]

Vaughan Receives Sustainability Innovation Honorable Mention
Master's candidate Eric Vaughan received one of two honorable mention awards from the Dow Sustainability Innovation Student Challenge for his research project: "A Methodology for Evaluating Coupled Pricing Policies that Stimulate the Agricultural Use of Treated Wastewater." [posted 4/26/11]

Vogel Receives Award for Commitment to Research
Professor Rich Vogel gave the keynote address: "Water Resources Planning in a Changing World" at the 8th Water Resources Conference at the University of Massachusetts Amherst addressed the needs for water monitoring, assessment, and management of water resources in New England due to variability and changes in climate, land use, population, and other environmental stressors. Vogel also received the John W. Olver Leadership Award in recognition of his "dedicated leadership and outstanding commitment to environmental research and protection of our natural resources." [posted 4/8/11]

Matt Becker Receives NSF GRFP Honorable Mention
Matt Becker, a master's candidate in the IMPES lab, received an honorable mention from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellows Program (GRFP). Currently, he is working with Dr. Linda Abriola on two projects regarding mathematical modeling of nanoparticle fate and transport in porous media. [posted 4/6/11]

Pennell Gives Seminar for Brown's Superfund Research Program
On March 4, 2011, Professor and Chair Kurt Pennell gave a lecture on "Linking Environmental Toxicants to Neurodegenerative Disease: Persistent Organic Pollutants and Engineered Nanomaterials" as part of Brown University's Superfund Research Program. Epidemiological and laboratory studies provide data to support an association between persistent organic pollutant exposure and an increased risk of developing Parkinson's disease. [posted 3/8/11]

Doctoral Student Research on Climate Change and Cholera Featured
The research of Ali Akanda and Antarpreet Jutla, doctoral candidates in Professor Shafiqul Islam's research group WE REASoN, was featured in Yale Environment 360, an online publication of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. Jutla and Akanda have been working with Islam to develop methods to use remote sensing and climate data to track the coastal plankton blooms that occur before cholera outbreaks. Climate change could exacerbate these plankton blooms, and in turn, the severity of cholera outbreaks. "Although there is no clear understanding of the exact nature of the relationship between cholera and climate," said Islam, "if climate change leads to more extremes, it will have an impact on cholera." [posted 3/2/11]

Swan and Colleagues Win Best ASEE Paper Award
Associate Professor Chris Swan and colleagues Angela Bielefeldt (University of Colorado-Boulder) and Kurt Paterson (Michigan Technological University) received the 2010 American Society of Engineering Education's Best Paper Award for their paper "Measuring the Impacts of Project-Based Service Learning." The paper previously won the 2009 ASEE Environmental Engineering Division PIC II Best Paper Award. [posted 1/31/11]

Baise Elected to Seismological Society of America Board
Associate Professor Laurie Baise was elected to the board of the Seismological Society of America. "To address seismic hazard in the future, interdisciplinary efforts will be required, and the Seismological Society of America provides an ideal venue to promote and encourage these important efforts," said Baise. [posted 1/25/11]

Undergraduate Student Wins 2011 Max O. Urbahn Award
Lindsay Hull (E'11) is this year's recipient of the Max O. Urbahn, F.A.I.A. Scholarship from the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) New York City Post. The award is given annually to an academically deserving civil and environmental engineering student at Tufts University School of Engineering in recognition of outstanding leadership, high ethics and scholarship achievement. [posted 12/20/10]

Associate Professor Durant Receives Tufts Community Research Center Award
On November 30, 2010, Associate Professor John Durant and collaborators received a Tufts Community Research Center Award for involvement in the Community Assessment of Freeway Exposure and Health (CAFEH) study. Lead by Doug Brugge, Professor of Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, CAFEH is funded by a $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study pollution in Boston communities near major highways. The Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership, Chinese Progressive Association, Committee for Boston Public Housing and the Chinatown Resident Association are also partners in research. In addition, special recognition was given to Associate Professor David Gute and the Vida Verde Women's Co-Operative founded by the Brazilian Woman's Group in Collaboration with Academic and Community Partners and principally funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. [posted 11/29/10]

Professor Vogel Presents Virtual Seminar on Hydromorphology
On Fri., Nov. 5 ,2010, Professor Rich Vogel presented an online seminar titled "Hydromorphology: The Shape of our Water Future" as part of the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc.'s (CUAHSI) 2010 cyberseminar series. Hydromorphology deals with structure and evolution of hydrologic systems due to complex coupling between human and natural systems. Hydromorphologic problems represent scientific, social and engineering challenges related to how humans reshape fresh-water systems through modifications to the landscape, water infrastructure, and climate, and how our reshaped water systems influence life on the planet. Download the presentation slides, or hear the full lecture online. [posted 11/9/10]

Associate Professor Griffiths Comments on Water Infrastructure
The New York Times Op-Ed columnist Bob Herbert quoted adjunct Associate Professor Jeffrey Griffiths in a column on the aging water system infrastructure. Griffiths, the chairman of the Drinking Water Panel of the Science Advisory Board of the Environmental Protection Agency, told The Times: "We're relying on water systems built by our great-grandparents, and no one wants to pay for the decades we've spent ignoring them. There's a lot of evidence that people are getting sick. But because everything is out of sight, no one really understands how bad things have become." [posted 10/26/10]

Associate Professor Gute Holds Community Meeting on NIOSH Grant
The Boston Globe reported on a community meeting held by Associate Professor David Gute who presented findings from his community-based grant "Assessing and Controlling Occupational Risks for Immigrants In Somerville." More than 50 people attended the meeting to hear preliminary results of the collaboration to support healthy conditions for local immigrant workers. [posted 10/21/10]

St. Vincent Awarded EPA STAR Fellowship
Doctoral candidate Allison St. Vincent was awarded a 2010 Environmental Protection Agency STAR (Science To Achieve Results) fellowship to study traffic-generated ultrafine particles (UFP) near highways. Exposure to UFP (diameter <100 nm) has been linked to cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases in people living near highways. Allison's research will focus on developing better measures of personal exposures to UFP among people who live near highways by combining detailed air pollution monitoring and local-scale modeling. [posted 10/1/10]

Department Receives NSF Funding to Support Environmental Sustainability Teaching and Research
The department has received $1.6 million from the National Science Foundation to create a state-of-the-art Environmental Sustainability Laboratory (ESL) that will support multi-disciplinary experimental and mathematical modeling research to advance the fundamental understanding of the fate, transport and control of emerging contaminants in multi-media (air-water-soil) environmental systems. The proposed renovation will provide approximately 3,000 sq. ft. of wet-laboratory space and associated infrastructure, including a temperature-controlled chamber and analytical instrument bays. [posted 9/16/10]

Environmental Health Students Continue to Battle Disease in Ghana
Doctoral student Karen Kosinski has been working in Ghana to develop a recreation facility that provides clean, parasite-free water to schoolchildren at risk of contracting schistosomiasis. Affecting more than 207 million people a year, schistosomiasis is all too common among poor populations in Africa who do not have access to clean water. [posted 9/8/10]

Gulf Waste Heads to Landfills, Some with Problems
The Associated Press reported on the thousands of tons of oil-soaked debris from the Gulf Coast spill that is ending up in local landfills, some of which were already dealing with environmental concerns. Professor and Chair, Kurt Pennell, commented on the situation. [posted 8/25/10]

Water Diplomacy Program Gets a Boost
The National Science Foundation has awarded a $4.2M, five-year grant to Tufts' Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) initiative to create an interdisciplinary doctoral program in water diplomacy. Tufts' IGERT team, led by Professor Shafiqul Islam, comprises 17 faculty members from three schools, with eight U.S. partners and five international partners. [posted 8/6/10]

Student Named 2010 DOW Sustainability Innovation Winner
Doctoral student Karen Kosinski was a winner in the DOW Sustainability Innovation Student Challenge for her research on the evaluation of a novel primary prevention technique for the control of urinary schistosomiasis. Karen received $10,000 at the ceremony held at Sophia Gordon Hall. [posted 5/26/10]

Chapra Receives Award for "Most Notable" Paper
Professor Steven Chapra received the Chandler-Misener Award for his paper "Great Lakes chloride trends: Long-term mass balance and loading analysis." This award is presented annually to the authors of the "most notable" peer-reviewed paper in the current volume of the "Journal of Great Lakes Research." [posted 5/20/10]

Student Wins Outstanding Student Paper Award
Stacey Archfield, EG'09, received a 2009 AGU Outstanding Student Paper Award at American Geophysical Union (AGU) 2009 Fall Meeting in San Francisco for her paper "Rainfall-runoff model calibration at an ungauged catchment using the map correlation method". The research represents a fundamental improvement over the widely used 'drainage area ratio' method for transferring streamflow from one basin to another. [posted 5/13/10]

Gute Earns Two Tufts Awards
Associate Professor David Gute was chosen by the Tufts' Equal Educational Opportunity Committee as a recipient of Multicultural Service Award. This award recognizes those who have made significant efforts to define Tufts as a multicultural environment. Gute also earned the 2010 International Relations Outstanding Faculty Service Award. [posted 4/23/10]

Chris Swan Highlighted in Book on Civic Engagement
Associate Professor Chris Swan is highlighted in a new book called "Citizen You" by Tufts Trustee, Jonathan Tisch. "[…]spend a day with Chris Swan, and you'll discover that a civil engineer can also be a college senior teaching kids in a bilingual third-grade class in Somerville, Massachusetts, about water conservation and the basics of a sustainable life." [posted 4/16/10]

Vogel's Research Related to Local Flooding Concerns
This op-ed from Massachusetts State Rep. Will Brownsberger quotes Professor Richard Vogel on how development has affected flooding of the Mystic River and its tributaries around Belmont, Mass. "Professor Richard Vogel...estimates that the 100 year flow event on the Aberjona (tributary to the Mystic) has gone up by a factor of five since the 1940s, as a result of development," writes Brownsberger. [posted 4/9/10]

Pennell Presents at Forum to Discuss Kuwait Environmental Remediation Program
Professor and Chair Kurt Pennell attended a three-day forum sponsored by the Kuwait National Focal Point (KNFP), where he gave a presentation on physical and chemical remediation technologies. According to the KNFP website, the goal of the Kuwait Environmental Remediation Program is to remediate environmental damage caused by the Gulf War. [posted 3/30/10]

Undergraduate Student Wins Max O. Urbahn Award
Meggie Betancourt received the Max O. Urbahn Award from New York City Post of the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) in recognition of outstanding leadership, high ethics and scholarship achievement. [posted 1/27/10]

Islam Presents at NIH Climate Change and Health Workshop
Professor Shafiqul Islam presented a talk on the effects of climate change on cholera dynamics and predictions at a workshop sponsored by the Trans-NIH Working Group on Climate Change and Health. [posted 12/10/09]

USGS Grant Awarded to Laurie Baise
Associate Professor Laurie Baise was awarded a one-year grant from the U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program. Working in collaboration with the University of Alaska - Fairbanks, their project titled "Application of Satellite Data for Post-liquefaction Reconnaissance" will verify the applicability of satellite remote sensing for post-liquefaction reconnaissance. Historically, earthquake-induced liquefaction is known to have caused extensive structural and lifeline damages around the world. Therefore, there is a compelling need to characterize and map liquefaction after an earthquake event. The research will use the 2001 Bhuj earthquake as a test case. [posted 12/1/09]

Islam Presents at Boston AIChE Meeting
Professor Shafiqul Islam presented a talk at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Boston chapter entitled "Water - Is it the New Oil?" Professor Islam's lecture addressed some of the following questions: Is there a worldwide water shortage, or is the problem a local one? How does diplomacy figure in? Can technology alone solve the problems? [posted 11/19/09]

Pennell Appointed to National Academy of Engineering Committee
Kurt Pennell, Professor and Chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has recently been appointed to the National Research Council's study on improving hazardous waste management at problematic sites where the presence of recalcitrant or poorly accessible contaminants is preventing site closure. The project, titled "Future Options for Management in the Nation's Subsurface Remediation Effort", started in September 2009 and will run for approximately 32 months. The committee will convene to study topics such as the threats to public water supplies, long-term management and the barriers to close certain sites. [posted 11/16/09]

Islam Awarded NIH Challenge Grant in Health and Science Research
Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Shafiqul Islam, the University of Maryland, and the Institute of Water Modeling in Bangladesh have received a NIH Challenge Grant for a collaborative proposal that examines how sea level increases and variations in precipitation might affect transmission of cholera, which has re-emerged as a significant cause of death. [posted 11/13/09]

Gute Leads APHA Session on Primary Prevention in Waterborne Disease
Associate Professor David M. Gute organized a session at the recent Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA). This session advanced the proposition that the global control of waterborne disease will benefit from a re-emphasis on the use of primary prevention strategies. Such strategies would complement disease control programs that currently focus upon the provision of population-based chemotherapy. [posted 11/12/09]

Professor Islam Provides New Insight into Predicting Cholera Epidemics in the Bengal Delta
In Bangladesh, cholera epidemics occur twice a year: in the spring and again in the fall. But the mechanisms behind these unique dual outbreaks are not fully understood. Now, researchers, including Professor Shafiqul Islam and doctoral students Ali Akanda and Antarpreet Jutla have proposed a link between cholera and fluctuating water levels in the region's three principal rivers - the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna. [posted 11/6/09]

Chelsea Neil Wins First Place in A&WMA Student Paper Competition
Chelsea Neil, a 2009 Summer Scholar who worked with Associate Professor Chris Swan, took first place in the Air & Waste Management Association's (A&WMA) Student Paper Competition. Chelsea's paper on the reduction in leachable arsenic from coal fly ashes incorporated into synthetic aggregates earned her a $1,000 cash prize and a one-year student membership to the A&WMA. She presented her paper at the A&WMA New England Fall Conference. [posted 11/6/09]

Oommen Takes Second in Northeast Geotechnical Graduate Research Symposium
Thomas Oommen, a doctoral candidate working with Associate Professor Laurie Baise's in the Geohazards Engineering Research group, won second prize for his abstract on "Implementing Probability of Liquefaction in Geotechnical Engineering Practice" in the Geosyntec Consultants Abstract Competition as part of the 2009 Northeast Geotechnical Graduate Research Symposium. [posted 11/2/09]

Developing Groundwater Models to Protect Infrastructure
With declining groundwater levels surrounding their pilings, buildings in many Boston neighborhoods could become dangerously unstable. Now Tufts engineers Brian Thomas, a doctoral student in statistical hydrology, and Richard Vogel, Civil and Environmental Engineering professor, are looking to shore them up. Read more in Tufts Journal. [posted 10/23/09]

Gute Appointed to USEPA Steering Committee
Associate Professor David M. Gute of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering has been appointed to the Steering Committee of the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Research and Information Collection Partnership (RICP). The RICP was formed as a result of a process initiated to revise and improve the Total Coliform Rule. The Total Coliform Rule is of central importance to the control of waterborne pathogens in the United States. [posted 10/16/09]

Natalie Cápiro Joins the IMPES Lab
Natalie Cápiro joins the Integrated Multiphase Environmental Systems Laboratory (IMPES) as a Research Assistant Professor. Dr. Cápiro (PhD, Rice University) comes from the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology where she conducted postdoctoral research in environmental biotechnology and bioremediation applications, fate and transport of persistent organic groundwater contaminants, and remediation technologies. [posted 10/5/09]

Vogel Named Director of WSSS
Professor Richard Vogel has been named the director of the interdisciplinary graduate program in Water: Systems, Science and Society (WSSS) program. As director, Professor Vogel will continue to expand interdisciplinary, water-related research and education efforts across Tufts' schools in collaboration with the Tufts Institute of the Environment (TIE). As of Sept. 1, Professor Vogel was also named director of the water-related activities at TIE. [posted 9/1/09]

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