Graduate Civil and Environmental Engineering
Our graduate students go on to do great things, like protect Utah's drinking water and oversee construction at the U.
Civil and Environmental Engineering has both MS and PhD degree offerings. Each student chooses a focus for their academic studies. These academic areas are listed below.
Environmental Engineering
Geotechnical Engineering
Materials Engineering
Structural Engineering
Transportation Engineering
Water Resources
ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING
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- Environmental Engineers work to improve public health and quality of life, while protecting and restoring environmental systems. These engineers focus on drinking water treatment, wastewater reclamation, air pollution control, solid waste management and environmental remediation.
Professors in this area:
GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING
- Geotechnical Engineering is the application of Civil Engineering technology to some aspect of the earth, usually the soil and rock found on or near the surface. Infrastructure and natural geologic landforms and hazards designed and/or analyzed by Geotechnical Engineers include foundations for many types of structures (for example, buildings, bridges, dams, and roadways), natural and human-made slopes, retaining walls, tunnels, earthen dams and levees, highway embankments, earthquakes, liquefaction and lateral spread, ground contamination, ground improvement and stabilization, lightweight embankment materials, and re-use of construction and other waste materials. Sub-disciplines and related disciplines include Soil Mechanics, Rock Mechanics, Foundation Engineering, Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering, Geoenvironmental Engineering, and Geological Engineering.
Professors in this area:
MATERIALS ENGINEERING
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- Materials deals with the durability of materials. For example, better portland cement concrete does not fall apart from intrusion of chemicals (salts, etc.), better asphalt concrete will not be susceptible to water intrusions (e.g., less potholes during the spring thaw)
- When materials last longer, the maintenance cycle is extended (i.e., less often) resulting in substantial savings
- Better materials also reduce the carbon footprint of everything we built.
- Concrete last between 20 to 50 years and is responsible for 5% of all greenhouse emission in the planet
- Over $40M are spend every year in road maintenance. Given a 10 year cycle, a simple improvement of 1 year will result in $4M in savings. That's every year!
Professors in this area:
STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING
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- Structural engineering involves learning the theory of structures such as buildings and bridges, and includes computer-aided engineering and structural dynamics, and earthquake and wind engineering analysis and design. Structural engineers carry out performance-based design and study the behavior of structures built using reinforced and prestressed concrete, structural steel, timber, or composites. Moreover, structural engineers are involved in mitigating the impact of natural hazards and extreme weather using advanced structural sensing, hybrid simulation and reliability, to improve infrastructure resilience.
Professors in this area:
TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING
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- The transportation engineering program in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering emphasis on the applications of state-of-art advancements concerning planning, design, operations, maintenance, and assessment of transportation systems. The faculty conducts research in the area of the transportation system design and modeling, addresses contemporary issues such as shared mobility, vehicle electrification and automation, and stresses the development of computational analytics and problem-solving skill sets.
Professors in this area:
WATER RESOURCES
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- Water resources engineers plan and design infrastructure systems to provide clean drinking water, collect and treat wastewater, supply water for agriculture, protect from floods, prevent adverse water quality impacts, increase efficiency, address greenhouse gas emissions, and mitigate drought impacts. Today’s exciting opportunities for civil engineers include applications of smart technologies, distributed sensor systems, artificial intelligence, natural systems, biotechnology, robots, social sensing, and more to make water systems of all kinds more sustainable and resilient.
Professors in this area:
Masters | PhD |
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MS Non-Thesis: This is a coursework only based degree. Students in a MS non-thesis degree program must complete 30 hours of graduate credit coursework. In the final semester of study the student is responsible for the completion of an essay-based comprehensive exam. | Traditional PhD: Applicants will have completed a MS prior. |
MS Thesis: This degree is a research based master degree. Students in this degree program must complete 24 credit hours of coursework, and six hours of research. In the student's final semester there is a formal thesis defense, with supervising faculty members. This defense is an open forum. | Direct Admit PhD: Applicants are highly qualified students who have completed a BS. The direct admit PhD degree emphasizes scholarly research activities, can reduce course requirements, and expedite progress towards degree completion. |
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How are applicants evaluated? | Masters | PhD |
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GPA: | Mean undergraduate GPA is 3.0+ on 4.0 GPA scale. | Traditional PhD: Undergraduate GPA is 3.0+ on 4.0 GPA scale. Direct Admit PhD: Undergraduate GPA is 3.5+ on 4.0 GPA scale. |
Education | A prior degree in civil engineering is not required. | A prior degree in civil engineering is not required. |
* The only exception is for MS non-thesis students who have an undergraduate cumulative GPA of 3.2 or higher.
Degree requirements | Masters | PhD |
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Minimum # of coursework hours | MS Non-Thesis: 30 MS Thesis: 24 | Traditional PhD: 18 Direct Admit PhD: 30 |
Minimum # of research hours | MS Non-Thesis: N/A MS Thesis: 6 | 14 |
Funding Available? | MS Non-Thesis: No. MS Thesis: Occasionally | Yes. |