CEE in the News

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]

Magnetism and Mechanics of Soft Materials
The United States--Israel Binational Science Foundation is sponsoring a four-year collaborative research to investigate how externally applied magnetic fields can substantially and rapidly deform soft materials. Principal investigators include Gal deBotton, Ben Gurion University, Israel, Pedro Ponte Castaneda, University of Pennsylvania, and Tufts University’s Luis Dorfmann who directs the Mechanics of Soft Materials Laboratory. [posted 8/20/09]

Solar Express
The Boston Globe reports on Curio House, the roughly 800-square-foot home designed by students such as Matt Thoms (E’10), engineering project leader, for the 2009 Solar Decathlon, a contest sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. Take a tour at http://livecurio.us or read more about the project in the Spring Engineering eNews. [posted 8/2/09]

Attracting Future Engineers with Hands-on Learning
With a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, associate professor Chris Swan is leading a team of researchers to study whether curricula that emphasize hands-on, service-based learning, as well as traditional academic and technical knowledge, might improve engineering programs and boost the number of women interested in the male-dominated field. Read about this study in the Spokane Journal of Business or the
Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service newsletter. [posted 7/17/09]

Tracking Trouble in Paradise
One of the most picturesque places in the world has a water problem. A group of graduate researchers in the
Water: Systems, Science and Society program is doing something about it. [posted 7/15/09]

An Interdisciplinary Incubator
By focusing on how animals move, a group of Tufts researchers, including students in associate professor Luis Dorfmann's Mechanics of Soft Materials Laboratory, are changing how we think about (and may one day build) robots. [posted 7/15/09]

Professor Shafiqul Islam featured in Boston Globe
In an interview with The Boston Globe, Professor Islam discusses water scarcity and strategy including a new collaborative online resource called AquaPedia. [posted 7/12/09]

IMPES Lab Receives NSF Grant
Professor and Chair, Kurt Pennell, Dean Linda Abriola, and former IMPES post doctoral researcher, Yusong Li, have been awarded a $350,000 National Science Foundation grant to study fate and transport of metal-based nanoparticles in the subsurface. [posted 6/17/09]

Professor Vogel Wins ASCE Award
The ASCE's 2009 Julian Hinds Award was presented to Professor Richard Vogel for his advancement of the practice and science of water resource planning and management through his hydrologic research, his extension of the results of hydrologic research to problems of other disciplines, his participation in the affairs of professional societies, notably the American Society of Civil Engineers and the American Geophysical Union, and his encouragement of students to pursue engineering careers. [posted 6/1/09]

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