Carnegie Mellon University Civil and Environmental Engineering

Please join us in congratulating three CEE professors on their 2026 Engineering faculty awards:

Peter Adams received the Distinguished Professor of Engineering Award.
Kaushik Dayal received the Outstanding Mentoring Award.
Katherine Flanigan received the Benjamin Richard Teare Teaching Award.

Congratulations, Peter, Kaushik, and Katherine!

We are excited to recognize our 2026 Engineering faculty award winners! Congratulations to Peter Adams, Tzahi (Itzhaq) Cohen-Karni, Keith Cook, Kaushik Dayal, Katherine Flanigan, Noelia Grande Gutiérrez, Valerie Karplus, P. Chris Pistorius, Patrick Tague, and Kathryn Whitehead!

Last week, American Society of Civil Engineers and Carnegie Mellon University Civil and Environmental Engineering hosted 24 engineering educators from across the country for six intensive days of teaching seminars, demo classes, learning labs, and hands-on practice teaching, all designed to help faculty become better, more effective teachers.

From the first team-building brunch to the final graduation ceremony, this ExCEEd cohort brought it. They showed up early, leaned into feedback after every practice class, brought genuinely great ideas to each seminar, and still had energy left to celebrate together at Schenley Park on their last night.

Thank you to our mentors and assistant mentors, who spent long days coaching six teams through seminars on everything from questioning techniques to building rapport to active learning, Fethiye Ozis and Geena Provenzano for coordinating the program and hosting participants and staff, and to Dion Coward and for continuing to invest in civil engineering education.

To this year's participants: you pushed yourselves and got out of your comfort zone because you clearly deeply love this profession. We hope you leave CMU remembering exactly why you started in the first place: because your heart is in the teaching. ❤️

Three Carnegie Mellon University Civil and Environmental Engineering students just picked up national recognition from the Structural Engineers Foundation.

• Dora Bowen-Glazeroff, CivE/ CMU Engineering and Public Policy class of 2028, received the SEF Undergraduate Scholarship
• Aurora Fuchs, CivE class of 2026, received the SEF Diversity Scholarship
• Jose Echeverria Nufio, CivE class of 2026, received the Rubinos-Mesia Award

SEF's scholarships go to students shaping the next generation of structural engineering — proud to see three of our own on that list this year!

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) ExCEEd Teaching Workshop kicked off this week at Carnegie Mellon University.

Department Head Gregory Lowry and Emeritus Department Head David Dzombak welcomed everyone to open things up, and from there the group dove right into a full week of work on teaching.

This year's cohort includes 36 faculty from across the country - from Alaska and Hawaii to Illinois and Georgia - working in structures, geotech, sustainability, and construction management. Over the course of the week they'll dig into course design, instruction techniques, and how to assess student learning effectively.

At the kickoff, we asked participants to sum up their teaching style in one word. A few of the answers:
Engaging • Exciting • Passionate
Impactful • Memorable • Motivating
Caring • Challenging • Collaborative

Educators investing in becoming better educators. We are excited to see what the week ahead holds!

Congratulations to Gregory Lowry for being awarded the 2026 Frederick George Pohland Medal from the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) and the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists(AAEES).

The Pohland Medal recognizes sustained and outstanding efforts to bridge environmental engineering research, education, and practice. Lowry is being honored for his contributions connecting environmental engineering practice communities and academia in environmental nanotechnology and remediation.

Some news we're proud to share: Gregory Lowry is the new head of Carnegie Mellon's Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Greg has been part of this department for more than 25 years as a researcher, teacher, and most recently interim head. We are excited about his continued leadership as the department deepens its focus on engineering resilience to sustain a changing world.

Join us in congratulating him. Full announcement:

Lowry named head of Civil and Environmental Engineering Gregory Lowry has been named Department Head of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

In a recent CNN article covering data center expansions, Costa Samaras spoke about how the dynamic with local communities is evolving.

" 'I think this is indicative of the type of interactions that data centers are now finding themselves having to deal with: concerned communities because of larger concerns around power, noise, emissions, water and other impacts,' said Samaras, director of the CMU Scott Institute for Energy Innovation and professor of Carnegie Mellon University Civil and Environmental Engineering."

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/05/us/nashville-zoo-data-center

Cost or comfort? What is the best AC temp during the heat wave While official recommendations land at 78 degrees, researchers found that average daytime thermostat settings were 72.1 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer.

Three major recognitions for CEE faculty!

Katherine Flanigan was named Henry Posner, Anne Molloy, and Robert and Christine Pietrandrea Career Development Chair in Civil and Environmental Engineering in CEE for her work making infrastructure smarter and more resilient through sensing and cyber-physical systems.
Destenie Nock, PhD was named Alex Hills Career Development Professor of Engineering and Public Policy for her modeling work on energy equity and sustainability planning.
David Rounce was awarded a Dean's Early Career Fellowship for his glacier and climate modeling research that helps communities prepare for a changing world.

Congratulations to all three CEE faculty members. Read more about their awards here:

Engineering faculty awarded professorships and fellowships Carnegie Mellon University has awarded professorships and fellowships to six exceptional faculty members in the College of Engineering this June. They will be honored in a formal ceremony later in the year.

Our Cities Were Designed for the Weather of the 1950s and ’60s Researchers and city planners are coming up with innovative techniques to help cities adapt to a warmer climate