Rice University Civil and Environmental Engineering

Rice University Civil and Environmental Engineering Top-ranked Rice University educates the civil and environmental engineering leaders of tomorrow and contribute to solving societal challenges.

Welcome to Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at Rice University. CEE at Rice is about building bridges—both figuratively and literally. Our researchers are building bridges into the future with their efforts to contribute to solutions of challenges of global, national, and local importance. We provide a rigorous, coherent curriculum that gives students a strong understanding of biological, chemical, physical, economic, and social systems that affect engineering research and practice.

Santiago Gonzalez Bonilla finished his undergraduate degree with a job offer already in hand, but he wanted to keep his ...
08/21/2026

Santiago Gonzalez Bonilla finished his undergraduate degree with a job offer already in hand, but he wanted to keep his options open. That choice brought him to Rice's Master of Civil and Environmental Engineering program, and today he is a structural engineer at Thornton Tomasetti.

From earthquake engineering to a capstone on deployable structures, the MCEE gave Santiago a foundation he could draw on from his very first days on the job.

Read how the MCEE helped Santiago launch his career: https://cee.rice.edu/news/rice-mcee-graduate-builds-foundation-structural-engineering-industry

Congratulations to rising senior Jordi De Jong on receiving the 2026 AIH-RISE Distinguished Recognition for Academic Exc...
08/18/2026

Congratulations to rising senior Jordi De Jong on receiving the 2026 AIH-RISE Distinguished Recognition for Academic Excellence from the American Institute of Hydrology.

The AIH-RISE Student Award recognizes outstanding academic achievement, research innovation, leadership, and professional promise among undergraduate and graduate students in hydrology-related fields. Nominated by Professor Phil Bedient, director of the SSPEED Center, Jordi earned the award for her academic performance, her research experiences and international study, and her practical work in flood management, stormwater engineering, and hydrologic modeling. Through classroom achievement, professional experience, and engagement in water-resources challenges, she has demonstrated exceptional promise as an emerging hydrologist and engineer.

đź‘ŹJoin us in celebrating Jordi on this remarkable accomplishment. https://aihydrology.org/announcing-the-aih-2026-rise-recipients/

Cleaning hazardous industrial wastewater and recovering valuable metals used to take two separate, expensive steps that ...
08/05/2026

Cleaning hazardous industrial wastewater and recovering valuable metals used to take two separate, expensive steps that left behind toxic sludge.

A breakthrough from Rice and Vanderbilt University, published in Nature Water, does both at once using electrochemical ion pumping (EIP). Led by Shihong Lin, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, with postdoctoral researcher Longqian Xu as first author, the team built a platform that programs electrode voltage to desalinate water and selectively harvest metals in a single continuous process, with no chemical additives required.

The results speak for themselves. Tests showed 90% salt removal while trapping nearly all of the copper on the electrode, and in a more complex mixture, the system captured copper at about 96% purity relative to nickel.

A scalable bridge between industrial water reuse and circular-economy resource recovery.

Read more: https://news.rice.edu/news/2026/rice-researchers-develop-technology-clean-salty-wastewater-while-recovering-valuable

Rice University spinout LumiStrain just landed a $1.55M NSF SBIR Fast-Track award, one of only 15 companies selected nat...
07/24/2026

Rice University spinout LumiStrain just landed a $1.55M NSF SBIR Fast-Track award, one of only 15 companies selected nationwide.

Co-developed by civil and environmental engineering professor Satish Nagarajaiah and team, its Strain Sensing Smart Skin combines an ultrathin carbon-nanotube sensing film with a noncontact optical imaging system to show engineers exactly where structures bend, strain and wear before problems surface. The technology has already been put to the test in the field, including during an Airbus A220 airframe certification test.

Read more: https://news.rice.edu/news/2022/strain-sensing-smart-skin-ready-deploy

Can protecting wetlands help pay for coastal protection? A new Rice-led study is testing exactly that.The Gulf Coast Pro...
07/22/2026

Can protecting wetlands help pay for coastal protection? A new Rice-led study is testing exactly that.

The Gulf Coast Protection District has approved a 12-month study, led by Rice's SSPEED Center, to explore whether blue carbon credits could help finance coastal erosion protection along the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway in Galveston County. Healthy marshes store carbon and protect communities from storm surge, so if preserving them generates verified, sellable carbon credits, that revenue could help fund living shoreline structures while reducing reliance on federal and state dollars alone.

The team will assess roughly 50 miles of shoreline to determine where this model could work and whether it could scale across the Gulf Coast.

Read more: https://news.rice.edu/news/2026/rice-study-explores-blue-carbon-financing-texas-coastal-protection

Celebrating a wonderful achievement for one of our graduate students. Wei-Ming Kung, a PhD student in the Department of ...
07/08/2026

Celebrating a wonderful achievement for one of our graduate students.

Wei-Ming Kung, a PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has been awarded the Joint Chinese College Alumni Association of Southern USA Mr. Man-De Yu and Mrs. Jin Yang Memorial Scholarship, which honors students of Taiwanese heritage in Texas for academic excellence in the sciences.

Advised by Dr. Qilin Li, Wei-Ming develops advanced water treatment technologies for water reuse. His research applies environmental chemistry along with biology and physics to study how electrochemical oxidation processes remove contaminants and improve the safety and sustainability of wastewater treatment, work that supports cleaner water and more resilient communities.

This recognition reflects both his dedication and the strength of the scholarly community that surrounds our graduate students. Join us in celebrating Wei-Ming and this meaningful milestone in his academic journey.

More than 15 years ago, researchers at Rice's SSPEED Center asked a question that would reshape how we think about the T...
07/07/2026

More than 15 years ago, researchers at Rice's SSPEED Center asked a question that would reshape how we think about the Texas coast: what kind of economy could survive on a hurricane-prone shoreline?

That question has now reached Congress. U.S. Rep. Randy Weber has introduced H.R. 9325, the Lone Star Coastal National Recreation Area Act, a concept that grew out of work by Jim Blackburn, co-director of the SSPEED Center and professor in the practice of environmental law in Rice's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, along with research partner Elizabeth Winston-Jones and others after Hurricane Ike struck in 2008.

The answer they found was rooted in the coast itself. Native ecosystems like wetlands, bays and barrier islands absorb storm impacts and recover in ways conventional development cannot, and they can support birding, kayaking, fishing and heritage tourism at the same time. The proposed recreation area would rely on voluntary participation, local leadership and partnerships, preserving state land and private property rights.

https://news.rice.edu/news/2026/rices-sspeed-center-helped-shape-coastal-recreation-vision-now-congress

A historic milestone that honors both Rice University and the civil and environmental engineering community.Rice Univers...
07/01/2026

A historic milestone that honors both Rice University and the civil and environmental engineering community.

Rice University President Reginald DesRoches has been elected to the National Academy of Construction, Class of 2026, placing him among only 18 individuals worldwide to hold the triple distinction of NAC membership, National Academy of Engineering membership and distinguished membership in the American Society of Civil Engineers. His election recognizes decades of contributions to construction research, educational innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Please join the Rice community in congratulating President DesRoches on this well-deserved recognition. https://news.rice.edu/news/2026/rice-president-desroches-elected-national-academy-construction

A new study using samples from a Houston-area wastewater treatment plant could pave the way for breakthroughs in healthc...
07/01/2026

A new study using samples from a Houston-area wastewater treatment plant could pave the way for breakthroughs in healthcare and environmental remediation.

A team led by Lauren Stadler has developed a new RNA-based barcoding system that reveals previously unknown relationships between bacteriophages and the bacteria they infect, a powerful new tool for next-generation microbiome engineering. Tested on samples from a Houston-area treatment plant, the approach uncovered a bacterial host group never before linked to a well-studied virus.

The discovery could accelerate the development of engineered phages for medicine, environmental remediation and industrial biotechnology. The interdisciplinary team included Rice alumnus Zach LaTurner along with graduate students Matthew Dysart, Samuel Schwartz and Elizabeth Zeng, and collaborators James Chappell and Jonathan Silberg of BioSciences at Rice.
Nature Portfolio

True leadership means pushing the boundaries of what's possible in water and resource sustainability.Congratulations to ...
06/30/2026

True leadership means pushing the boundaries of what's possible in water and resource sustainability.

Congratulations to Dr. Qilin Li, the Karl F. Hasselmann Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, on receiving the 2026 Walter J. Weber Jr. AEESP Frontier in Research Award, the highest honor given by the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors. Her pioneering research is shaping the future of resilient, affordable water infrastructure, from solar-powered desalination to advanced membrane technologies and recovering critical minerals like lithium from wastewater.

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