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.
Coursework and research opportunities are available in the
following areas:
Atmospheric Chemistry & Physics and Air Quality Engineering
Biological Wastewater Treatment
Environmental Chemistry
Environmental Microbiology
Groundwater and Subsurface Remediation
Physical/Chemical Treatment Processes
Surface Water Quality and Lake Management
Sustainability, Industrial Ecology, Pollution Prevention
Water Resources Engineering
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) and Drs. Crittenden and
Hand are currently collaborating with 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, two 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.”
The Association of Environmental Engineering & Science Professors
(AEESP) awarded their “2000 Outstanding Publication Award”
to Drs. Crittenden and Hand for a landmark environmental
engineering paper that has withstood the test of time (“Design
Considerations for GAC Treatment of Organic Chemicals,”
Journal of the American Water Works Association, 1987).
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
vision of Michigan Tech's Sustainable
Futures Institute (SFI) is to become internationally recognized
for its teaching, research, and outreach contributions to the field
of sustainable systems. We will develop a new meta-discipline in sustainability
science that integrates engineering and
technology elements of industrial ecology; the scientific elements of
environmental assessment and modeling; and the economic, human behavioral
elements of the social sciences that support environmental decision
making.
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.
Degree Details:
Master of Science Environmental
Engineering
Master of Science
Environmental Engineering Science
Master of Engineering
Environmental Engineering
Doctor of Philosophy
Environmental Engineering
