Professor Michele Barbato co-authored a chapter in the book recognized with a State-of-the-Art Civil Engineering Award by The American Society of Civil Engineers. The award celebrates the most gifted civil engineers who review and interpret scientific and technical information for the benefit of their colleagues.
Kaveh Madani, Ph.D. ’09 has been awarded the 2026 Stockholm Water Prize, known as the “Nobel Prize of Water.” Madani is recognized for his global leadership in water security, climate adaptation and the water-energy-food nexus.
Prof. Jason DeJong has been honored as one of two extraordinary faculty members receiving this year's Distinguished Graduate and Postdoctoral Mentorship Awards. These awards shine a light on the power of mentorship in shaping the academic and professional journeys of UC Davis graduate students and postdoctoral scholars.
The CEE Department recently celebrated our amazing undergraduate and graduate students with student scholarship and fellowship awards. Congratulations to all our awardees!
Undergraduate Awards:
Department Citation 2024-25
Given to graduating seniors in recognition of their outstanding academic achievement. This year we have ten recipients:
A paper by former UC Davis graduate student Sumeet Sinha, along with Professor Katerina Ziotopoulou and Professor Emeritus Bruce Kutter, has been selected as the 2025 recipient of the ASCE Norman Medal. The Norman Medal recognizes one paper from across all ASCE publications that makes a contribution to either practical or research aspects of engineering disciplines, with the practical value of the work and its impact on practice particular considerations.
Lei Zhou is a PhD candidate at UC Davis specializing in performance-based multi-hazard engineering with a focus on structural aging and climate change. Under the mentorship of Dr. Michele Barbato, Lei is dedicated to advancing research and education in structural engineering. His work integrates innovative methodologies to address critical challenges in building resilience and sustainability.
We are proud to announce that our undergraduate team, who worked tirelessly since Fall 2023, saw their hard work pay off when they took home one of the coveted awards of the competition. The annual design competition, which was held in Seattle this year in conjunction with the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) Annual Meeting, featured over 40 teams from around the world.
In honor of International Women’s Day on March 8, the University of California, Davis, College of Engineering recognizes women in engineering, their journey to and in the field, and how they promote a diverse, equitable and inclusive world.
Meet some remarkable women in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and learn how they inspire inclusion in engineering.
Laura Luna (our Ph.D. student) mentored two CEE undergrad students, Isabella Lera, and Jessica Lee, as they prepared a submission for the 2024 GeoVideo competition hosted by ASCE's GeoInstitute.
They were invited to attend GeoCongress in Vancouver to compete in the finals and were awarded top place.
We're proud of our colleague, Katerina Ziotopoulou, PhD, PE., who received the USUCGER Early Educator Award at the 2024 ASCE GeoCongress in Vancouver. This award can be awarded by the USUCGER Board, once every two years, to an affiliate of a USUCGER-member institution who has provided educational and/or professional development services to the USUCGER community.
Professor Fabian Bombardelli has received an honorific degree as Doctor Honoris Causa from the National University of La Plata (UNLP), Argentina. This is the highest academic accolade from UNLP. Prof. Bombardelli is a world-leader in hydraulic modeling and environmental fluid mechanics, and he received this honorific during a ceremony at which he presented a lecture titled "Numerical Simulation of Air Entrainment in Stepped Spillways: From Engineering to Research." You can read more about his accomplishments and the impact of his work here (in Spanish).
Dr. Ahmad Hassan was selected as the 2024 recipient of the Reidar Bjorhovde Outstanding Young Professional Award from the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC). This prestigious award provides recipients with mentorship and connects them with leaders in the steel industry that will help to foster a broad look at the world of steel. Dr. Hassan graduated with his Ph.D.
Prof. Emeritus Patricia (Pat) Mokhtarian was elected to the 2024 class of the National Academy of Engineering for her contributions to "improved transportation systems planning and practice through quantifying human behavior." Prof. Mokhtarian is a world-leading researcher on travel behavior. Her work on the impact of telecommunications technology on travel behavior long predates the huge shift that has taken place over the last few years.
The American Society of Civil Engineers has awarded the 2024 Raymond C. Reese Research Prize to Amit Kanvinde, Professor at UC Davis’s Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and Aditya Jhunjhunwala, his PhD student. The Raymond C. Reese Research Prize, created in 1970, is given to authors of an article that “describes a notable achievement in research related to structural engineering and which indicates how the research can be used,” according to the ASCE website.
We are proud to announce that Graduate Program Coordinator Lauren Worrell received the 2022 NACADA Region 9 Award for Excellence in Advising for her primary role as an academic advisor.
