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 Environmental
Engineering is housed in the new $45-million Dow Environmental Science
and Engineering Building, that overlooks Portage Lake and is accessible
by a bike path. U.S. News & World Report has ranked Michigan
Tech’s Environmental Engineering program as one of the Nation’s
top programs. We have over 50 full-time graduate students (one half
are PhD students). Graduate students regularly interact with our
undergraduate environmental engineering program that ranks amongst
the Nation’s top four programs in terms of number of degrees awarded.
Research funding
comes from a wide variety of sources including federal and state
governments, industry, and foundations. Coursework and research
opportunities are available in the following areas:
Examples of
Scholarship.
Michigan Tech faculty have numerous scholarly accomplishments related
to environmental engineering. For example, Six faculty (Drs. Mihelcic,
Auer, Hand, Honrath, Perlinger, Urban) have co-written Environmental
Engineering Fundamentals (John Wiley & Sons, 335 pgs, 1999)
Dr. David Hand
is collaborating with and Dr. John Crittenden, Dr. Rhodes Trussell
(Montgomery Watson) and Dr. George Tchobanoglous (University of
California-Davis) on re-writing the Second Edition of Water Treatment:
Principles and Design (John Wiley & Sons, 2002).
In addition,
Dr. David Shonnard (Chemical Engineering) is co-author of the book
Green Engineering: Environmentally Conscious Design of Chemical
Processes, (Prentice Hall, 2001). Several faculty have also
received education grants from the National Science Foundation for
development of innovative educational programs.
Several faculty
have or currently serve as editors of prestigious journals including
Dr. Mayer (Editorial Board, Advances in Water Resources,
Editorial Board, Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, Associate
Editor, Water Resources Research. In addition, faculty
(Drs. Baillod, and Paterson) have been elected to the Board of Directors
of the Association of Environmental Engineering & Science Professors
(AEESP). Lastly, Dr. Auer is the co-chair of the the conference,
“Superior: State-of-the-Lake”
that is being held on Michigan Tech’s campus in May of 2002. He
is also serving as a guest editor for a special edition of the
Journal of Great Lakes Research and co-editor for a contribution
to the EcoVision World Monograph Series entitled, “Lake
Superior: Prelude, Processes, and Perspectives.”
Dr. Watkins was
co-recipient of the 1999 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management Best
Practice-Oriented Paper Award (“Screening Water Supply Options for
the Edwards Aquifer Region in Central Texas”). Dr. Gierke was a
recipient of an Outstanding Young Faculty Award from the U.S. Department
of Energy and Dr. Paterson was a Faculty Fellow with NASA’s Goddard
Space Flight Center.
Other Research/Outreach Centers that graduate students can work with.
 Michigan Tech’s Remote
Sensing Institute (RSI) includes a diverse group of remote sensing
researchers that span seven academic departments. These departments
(Biology, Chemistry, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Electrical
Engineering, Forestry, Geological Engineering & Sciences, and Physics)
have strengths in all parts of remote sensing, including theory, instrument
design, and signal processing. RSI members hold over $8.5 million in
research funding from NASA, NSF, DOE and others (including a NASA grant
of $833K for remote sensing computation).
The Department also
houses the National Center
for Clean Industrial and Treatment Technologies CenCITT which
has a focus on clean technology and environmentally conscious manufacturing.
CenCITT has provided support for over 200 graduate students, 106 Undergraduate
Students, 11 Post Doctoral fellows, and 60 Faculty. Sixteen Academic
Units have been involved and 709 research conveyances have occurred:
135 published and submitted papers, 81 proceedings, 7 patents, and 347
presentations.
Michigan Tech leads
a consortia of 5 universities (Large Lakes Observatory-University of
Minnesota, Applied Physics Laboratory - University of Washington, University
of Georgia, and University of Maryland) in the Keweenaw
Interdisciplinary Transport Experiment in Superior (KITES).
KITES is (funded at 5.1 million dollars for 5 years) designed to investigate
the Keweenaw Current in Lake Superior. Dr. Sarah Green (Michigan Tech
Department of Chemical Sciences) is the administrator for this project
and several Civil & Environmental Engineering faculty are major
participants in this project. KITES is jointly sponsored by the NSF
program on Coastal Ocean Processes and the NOAA Coastal Ocean Program.
The goals are to understand the physical driving forces for the current,
its seasonal and spatial variations, and its effect on the chemical
and biological processes in the nearshore and offshore lake environments.
This capability will be invaluable in examining water circulation, sediment
transport and chemical and biological processes that occur in the near
shore GL environments and predictive risk assessments.
The GEM
Center for Science and Environmental Outreach at Michigan Tech
provides community decision-maker outreach, school/community education,
and geographic information systems (GIS) related technical assistance.
The mission of the Center is to provide objective information, educational
outreach, and technical assistance on drinking water and waste reduction/recycling
issues. Its goal is to promote informed local and regional decision
making that will protect and wisely manage the water resources of Michigan's
Upper Peninsula and the upper Great Lakes. Faculty, graduate students,
undergraduate interns, and outside consultants have all been involved
in various projects with the Center. Some graduate students have received
funding through the GEM Center for their work on projects ranging from
an aquifer vulnerability study to development of an educational publication
on wetlands. Other undergraduate and graduate students have enjoyed
volunteer opportunities to lead interactive presentations in local K-12
classrooms and activities at K-12 school water festivals.
Another source of
interaction with industry on environmental design and compliance is
through Chem Alliance. Named a Dow Jones Business Directory “Select Site,” ChemAlliance was
established in September 1997 through a grant to Michigan Tech to establish
an environmental compliance assistance center for small and medium-sized
chemical companies. This project has focused on the creation of a virtual
compliance assistance center through development and placement of vast,
free information resources on one web-site to assist chemical companies
with EPA and other major environmental regulations. ChemAlliance has
developed several compliance assistance tools, ranging from one-page
fact sheets, and an interactive compliance "help desk" which will direct
the user to for their regulatory compliance questions. Recent ChemAlliance
web statistics show about 2,500 user-sessions and 7,000 page views per
month.
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- Environmental
Engineering Links
- Information
on specific specialty areas within Environmental Engineering is
also available.
Return to Research Focus Areas
Degree Details:
Master of Science Environmental Engineering
Master of Science Environmental Engineering Science
Master of Engineering Environmental Engineering
Doctor of Philosophy Environmental Engineering |
