Awards

Professor Emeritus Wilfried Brutsaert was awarded the 2022 Stockholm Water Prize for his groundbreaking work on quantifying terrestrial evaporation and its role in the energy balance of Earth. His work has allowed for accurate estimations of evolving precipitation levels, along with new ways of understanding groundwater storage. Professor Brutsaert's work is especially important given the climate crisis.

Civil and environmental engineering professor Sabbie Miller has received $1.5M in federal funding from the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E agency to advance the methods and metrics necessary to quantify greenhouse gas (GHG) sequestration in building materials.

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.

The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) announced in a press release on Feb. 9 that Professor Dan Sperling has been elected as a member of the 2022 class of the NAE for leadership and outstanding entrepreneurial contributions in transportation energy, advancing alternative energy policies and promoting government-industry-university collaborations.

Professor Alejandro Martinez is one of two recipients of the 2022 Arthur Casagrande Professional Development Award, with the other recipient being Professor Brett Maurer of University of Washington, Seattle.

The paper “Experimental investigation of postearthquake vertical load-carrying capacity of scoured reinforced concrete pile group bridge foundations” has been selected as Editor’s Choice for 2021’s 12th issue of the ASCE Journal of Bridge Engineering. This paper was co-authored by CEE Professor Michele Barbato and is the result of an ongoing research collaboration with Tongji University. Congratulations, Professor Barbato!

Congratulations Professor Amit Kanvinde for receiving the 2022 American Institute of Steel Construction T.R. Higgins Lectureship Award. This award recognizes outstanding researchers whose technical papers made outstanding contribution to the literature on fabricated structural steel. 

Each year, AISC's T.R. Higgins Lectureship Award recognizes an outstanding lecturer and author whose technical paper or papers, published during the eligibility period, are considered an outstanding contribution to the engineering literature on fabricated structural steel.

Professors  Heather Bischel  and Chris Cappa on preventing the spread of COVID-19 and wearing masks 

Professor Heather Bischel shares wastewater warning signs with the Wall Street Journal. 

The American Philosophical Society Welcomes New Members for 2021. Election to the American Philosophical Society honors extraordinary accomplishments in all fields. The APS is unusual among learned societies because its Membership is composed of top scholars from a wide variety of academic disciplines.

Professor Emeritus Deb Niemeier was selected as a member of Class 1 Mathematical and Physical Sciences. 

Written by Leon Szeto

Laura Hernandez-Bassal, PE, is a current structural and earthquake engineering Ph.D. candidate at UC Davis. Recently, she was awarded fellowships from the ACI Foundation and ASCE. 

The ACI Foundation is a non-profit subsidiary of ACI that promotes progress, innovation, and collaboration in the concrete industry through strategic investments in research, scholarship, and ideas. 

The ACI Foundation awarded Hernandez-Bassal the ACI Presidents' Fellowship. 

Professor Michele Barbato has been awarded the 2020 Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize for “his outstanding research in structural engineering and engineering mechanics, with emphasis on finite element response sensitivity analysis, seismic response steel-concrete composite systems, seismic pounding mitigation, performance-based hurricane engineering and hurricane hazard mitigation, nonstationary stochastic dynamics, multi-hazard performance-based engineering, and sustainable construction materials.”

Alejandro Martinez, assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has received a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development Program, for his proposal, “Soil Penetration Through Bioinspired Stress State Manipulation.”

The grant is worth up to $500,000 over five years. Martinez studies bioinspired geotechnics, a field that looks to biological organisms for inspiration to solve problems in geotechnical engineering.

Two CEE students were honored at the annual UC Davis Outstanding Senior Awards May 13.

UC Davis CEE Professor Michele Barbato was recently named ASCE Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) Fellow.

Professor Emeritus at the UC Davis Civil and Environmental Engineering Department Ed Idriss received the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute’s (EERI) 2018 George W. Housner Medal at the 11th US National Conference on Earthquake Engineering (11NCEE) in Los Angeles last month.