Youcan Feng, Ph.D. candidate in water resources, received one of this year’s Utah Water Users Association scholarships, which is awarded annually to two students who study in Utah and plan to pursue a water resources career. The scholarship winners were announced at the 21st Annual Utah Water Summit sponsored by the Utah Water Users Association and the Utah Water Conservation Forum on October 28, 2014.

Dr. Otakuye Conroy recently hosted two students from the Native American Research Internship program. The program places Native American undergraduates in health-related research labs for a 10-week paid internship, and is run through the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Utah. One student, Delilah Robb, won the undergraduate poster competition at the Association of American Indian Physicians annual conference for her work on water quality and endocrine disruptors on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation. The second student, Davian Thompson, won 1^st place in the undergraduate poster competition for environmental engineering at the annual Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native American in Science (SACNAS) conference.

The upcoming University of Utah’s annual Engineering Day is designed to leave local high school students with one important thought — there is a world of possibilities to explore here.

This year’s event, which is being sponsored by Rio Tinto, will be held Saturday, Oct. 11, starting at 9 a.m. in the Warnock Engineering Building lobby, 72 S. Central Campus Dr., in Salt Lake City. Registration is at 8:45 a.m., and the day will begin with a welcome from College of Engineering Dean Richard Brown and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Ajay Nahata. Each student can sign up for up to three tours and presentations among 27 different disciplines. Students can register by going to www.coe.utah.edu/eng_day.

For several hours, high school students — mostly from Utah — will be able to tour engineering labs on campus and talk with professors about their current research. The day was created to introduce students to the university’s engineering college and to encourage them to pursue their education here.

“Engineering Day at the U is a wonderful way for high school students to learn about opportunities in engineering and computer science,” said Brown. “Lab tours and demonstrations give students a glimpse into how engineering inventions improve the quality of life for humankind.”

In addition to touring the engineering labs, prospective students also will participate in demonstrations ranging from stepping into a driving simulator at the Utah Traffic Lab to watching civil engineers build a mock bridge and tower. Other disciplines students can learn about include scientific computing and visualization, earthquake analysis, ergonomics and safety, nuclear engineering, robotics, and video game design from the university’s nationally-recognized Entertainment Arts & Engineering: Master Games Studio.

“This is the opportunity for us to showcase the entire college to high school students at one place and at one time,” said Morgan Boyack, academic coordinator for the U’s College of Engineering who is in charge of Engineering Day 2014.

Engineering Day is just one of several ways academic advisors with the U’s College of Engineering reach out to local students to entice them to attend. The college also hosts field trips for local high schools, and advisors also attend schools to give presentations and feature alumni speakers.

The U’s College of Engineering undergraduate program has steadily moved up the U.S. News & World Report America’s Best Colleges ranking and was listed 57^th in the country for 2015. It was tied for the fastest-rising undergraduate program of any engineering college at a U.S. public university.

Just as certain viruses infect humans, there also are viruses that infect only bacteria. Unlike human viruses, however, which are non-discriminatory and will infect any number of different people, these viruses, known as bacteriophages, are “host-specific,” meaning each will attack only one particular bacteria.

“Wherever bacteria exist, there are bacteriophages,” says Ramesh Goel, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Utah. “If we go to any wetland, or streams or wastewater treatment process, bacteria are there, and so are bacteriophages.”

Goel believes he can put this phenomenon to good use.

The National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded scientist, who studies the microbial ecology of natural and engineered systems, particularly those that use microbes to remove pollutants and other contaminants from waste water, is trying to harness the power of bacteriophages to rid treated wastewater of problematic bacteria that cause operational problems during treatment.

Read more of the story at the NSF website.

Dr. Steven Bartlett had a busy summer traveling to China and Turkey to present various topics regarding the use of EPS geofoam for Civil Engineering applications. Topics included the protection of pipelines from earthquakes using EPS geofoam, which was presented at GeoShanghai 2014 (Protecting Pipelines).

In Turkey, Dr. Bartlett also presented to several conferences and seminars regarding EPS geofoam application (Geofoam Applications). For his efforts, the Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) Board of Directors of Turkey (EPSDER) presented him a recognition award. The award states:

“In great appreciation and consideration of your time, effort and support in the development of geofoam applications in Turkey.”

More information about this and other EPS research can be found at https://www.civil.utah.edu/~bartlett/Geofoam/

Dedicated, hardworking, intelligent, motivated, and successful. These are the words colleagues use to describe Amanda May as she helps guide young minds through the path of achieving success here at the University of Utah. As the department’s academic advisor, Amanda connects with both undergraduate and graduate students to make sure they are on the right track for a prosperous experience at the university. She serves on the University Academic Advising Committee and also is a member of their sub-committee for Marketing and Promotion for Academic Advising. In addition, Amanda recently received her Masters of Education degree with an emphasis in student affairs. That’s because for her, students come first – and always will.

The recent 2014 Automated Vehicles Symposium brought the opportunities and perils of vehicle automation clearly into view. The week-long event—largely, though not completely, open to the media—featured keynote remarks by self-driving technology providers, car makers, federal and state officials, and academic researchers. Speakers highlighted the current and near-term trajectory of the technology’s fundamental components, detailed the ongoing regulatory efforts to bring self-driving vehicles into the system safely, and debated the likely consequences of highly-automated cars, trucks, and buses.

Many of the event’s speakers provided a one-way flow of information, with much of the interactive action occurring in breakout sessions (which were closed to the media). I had the pleasure of participating in the transit and shared mobility session, which emphasized intelligent rollouts that take advantage of existing mass transit systems to avoid a nightmare scenario of drastically increased vehicle miles traveled (VMT). As Rod Diridon, Sr. of the Mineta Transportation Institute noted, substantial resources have been invested in existing transit systems, and it would be foolhardy to write them off. That is, the goal shouldn’t be replacement of existing systems; rather, the goal should be adaptation and cooperation.

During his plenary session presentation, Mike Gucwa of Stanford University succinctly described how automated vehicles (AVs) could lead to more VMT, based on his simulations of San Francisco Bay Area travel. Assuming current residential patterns, a 4-8 percent VMT increase is plausible, simply due to more efficient traffic flows (because connected self-driving vehicles could travel closer together, improving speeds) and driving-hassle reductions (as perceived values of travel time fall, because AV occupants are free to pursue other activities while in the car). At the same time, Gucwa projected average travel times to improve overall, even with more VMT. Ken Laberteaux of Toyota raised additional land use issues (e.g., easier commute = more sprawl?) that could lead to further increases in car travel. Because average time spent per day on personal travel seems to be about the same across a wide range of times and places (known as the travel time budget), at about 1.2 hours per day, faster travel may lead to new market pressures for exurban living. Moreover, the impacts discussed by Gucwa and Laberteaux are conservative in that they do not account for the possibility of AVs traveling with no human inside, in search of inexpensive, remote parking or to pick up other travelers. Read more…

From August 5th to August 7, 2014, The Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering, with the help of the Graduate Students from the Urban Water Group, hosted “Hydraulics Fun Days” for the kids attending the Club U Summer Camps. This year the kids constructed water wheels and created a pipe line out of PVC pipes to better understand water resources.

This week the Department held the first annual summer transportation camp sponsored by the Federal Highway. The week-long program was designed to introduce high school students to the transportation industry as well as create a STEM focus experience. During the camp, UDOT and UTA collaborated with the department to provide off-site field trips to Warm Springs FrontRunner Control and Maintenance Facility, Jordan River Light Rail Facility, Traffic Operations Center, and an active bridge building project. The students also participated in hands on activities in the traffic and materials labs on campus.