News archive: Academic Year 2013-2014

June 2014. Dr. Paul Gremillion will be organizing a water reuse conference in Prescott, June 20-21, 2014. The conference title and link to more info is: Water Reuse 2014: Reclaimed Water as a Resource for an Arid Future. This one-day conference assembles state and national leaders in wastewater reuse to discuss opportunities for Arizona’s municipalities and water districts. Our agenda includes case studies presented by engineers, water managers, and policy makers who have implemented successful and innovative reuse strategies. The conference will be held on Friday June 20, 2014 at Yavapai College in Prescott, Arizona and will be followed on Saturday June 21 by a field trip to reuse facilities in Cottonwood, Prescott, and Prescott Valley, Arizona.

May 2014. CECMEE major Sierra Holloway has be awarded the competitive AACE International – The Authority for Total Cost Management scholarship. As the winner of the Arizona section scholarship (competing with all AZ schools), Sierra will receive a $3000 scholarship for next year.

April 2014. Three Civil Engineering undergraduate students, Logan Couch, Jason Luque, and Chris Sobie, working with Dr. Ed Smaglik and in conjunction with the City of Flagstaff, presented on a research project involving bicycle and motor vehicle conflicts at the 63rd Annual Roads and Streets conference in Tuscon, Arizona, April 16th-18th , 2014. Since the fall of 2013, the City of Flagstaff has applied green paint to conflict zones within the bicycle lane on south Beaver Street with the goal of highlighting that conflict zone to all road users, bicycles and motor vehicles combined. Smaglik’s team has recorded video of operations at the locations prior to and after the paint installation, and is investigating the any change in user behavior.

April 2014. Students in CENE 545: Advanced Traffic Signal Systems participated in a field trip to various traffic management centers and facilities in Arizona and Nevada to aid in the completion of their semester long project of designing a signalized arterial. The class visited the City of Mesa’s Traffic Management Center, the ADOT Freeway Traffic Management Center, the ADOT Traffic Signal and Sign Shop, and the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada.

April 2014. The ASCE student chapter participated in the Pacific Southwest Regional Conference at San Diego State University. Teams participated in all competitions – from Steel Bridge and Concrete Canoe to the Environmental project, the GeoWall design, Surveying and the Technical Paper plus other events such as bowling with a concrete bowling ball, tug-o-war, volleyball, ultimate frisbee, KanJam, basketball, and impromptu mystery events. The NAU squad had depth in all events, leading us to a record-setting 6th place overall (and the highest place non-California team!), with specific awards in steel bridge (3rd, display; 3rd, construction economy), surveying (3rd) and concrete bowling (1st). The steel bridge was one of only 5 teams that were not disqualified (out of 18 total schools). NAU beat out a lot of heavily funded schools who support their teams an order of magnitude more than we are able. Special thanks to sponsors CEMEX, USDA-FS Rocky Mountain Research Station, Agate Inc., Copper State, Schuff Steel, NAU Welding and Engineering Fab Shops, the AISC, the NAU CM Program, Norfab Steel and Eager Welding.

March 2014. Environmental engineering Associate Professor Terry Baxter is the NAU researcher involved in a collaboration with UA and ASU to produce valuable products from algae, as well as to use the algae to treat wastewater. Find out more information here on this project.

January 2014. NAU CE senior Alejandra Quesada and CM senior Leondo Benally presented their research projects at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board on January 14-16, 2014 in Washington D.C.. Alejandra’s research topic is focused on “Deep Beam: Web Reinforcement” while Leondo’s research is entitled ”Rerouting Highway 89”. Their research project has been funded by the Federal Highway Administration via a NAU Dwight D. Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship. They both were recognized at the TRB Eisenhower Reception.

December 2013: Faculty member Craig Roberts (Associate Professor, transportation) said his “goodbyes” to teaching Fall 2012 semester. He’ll officially be retiring as of Spring 2014 and has taken on Emeritus status in the department. We hear that his new career will involve furniture making. CENE students and faculty wish him good luck in his new endeavors!

November 2013: Three NAU CE seniors (Mengxi Du, Junyi Shan, and Darius Ishaku) participated in the 2013 Arizona Pavements/Materials Conference in Tempe, winning 2^nd place in the Student Poster Competition. This event was sponsored by ADOT, ASU, local industry, and governments. All student participants were graduate students (MSs and PhDs) from ASU except for our three NAU seniors. They were received a $200 prize. Their award project was entitled “Experimental Study of Snow Melting System in Concrete Pavements in Northern Arizona”.

November 2013: Agate Inc. CEO Jim Uhl will be hosting 10 CECMEE students (6 CENE and 4 CM) at their facility in Phoenix AZ on November 1. The visit will include a facility tour, lunch and question/answer time with Agate engineers, construction managers and executives. CENE students Paul Bennett Jr, Diego Frank-Arriaga, Shuai Jiang, Sierra Shultz, Hannah Williams and Shuo Zhang are attending.

October 2013: History buff? Industrial Advisory Board Member Chuck Dryden donated the Charlie Dryden Collection to the Cline Library. These documents constitute a unique historical record of land ownership and public and private development in Northern AZ from 1945-2008. Almost all are unrecorded original work. Check out the guide to the collection to see what materials are available.

October 2013: Bob Stanley, VP of Arizona’s Professional Engineering board, presented the NCEES 2013 Engineering Award in the CENE 486C class. See June 2013 news item for details! Winning team mate Dan Hamill was present to receive the award for the team.

October 2013: CE seniors Junyi Shan and Darius Ishaku and their faculty advisor, Dr. Chun-Hsing Ho, participated in the 2013 Student Pervious Concrete Cylinder Competition sponsored by the American Concrete Institute (ACI) in Phoenix, winning 2nd place in the Load-to-Cost Ratio category. Teams were asked to submit their mix design formula to the ACI for review, then produced pervious concrete specimens, and brought their specimens to the competition event. There were 34 teams (25 universities) from the US and South America in the competition. Junyi and Darius were recognized at the ACI Student Lunch and will receive a $500 award. Darius and Junyi are also schedule to present their work in November at the AZ pavements/Materials Conference in Phoenix.

October 2013: History buff? Industrial Advisory Board Member Chuck Dryden donated the Charlie Dryden Collection to the Cline Library. These documents constitute a unique historical record of land ownership and public and private development in Northern AZ from 1945-2008. Almost all are unrecorded original work. Check out the guide to the collection to see what materials are available.

October 2013: CENE Alumnus Recognized! Maj. Josh Aldred, ’03 BSE CE, received the 2013 Excellence in Achievement by a Recent Graduate Award by the Alumni Association. Josh has been a practicing CE for the Air Force for 10 years, with 62 project worth $103M, is on the faculty as the US Air Force Academy and is currently pursuing a PhD in CE at UT-Austin, focusing on building energy and pollution control/lifecycle costs. Check out his full story online.

September 2013: Assoc. Prof. Paul Gremillion visited the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna Austria to participate in the signing of an agreement between Egypt, Chad, Libya and Sudan regarding shared use of the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer. Dr. Gremillion was responsible for the drafting and negotiation of this agreement while on leave from NAU 2009-2011. Visit the website for more information.

September 2013: NAU-CENE alumnus & supporter Shannon Clark attended the photovoltaic system celebration at the North Leupp Family Farm to accept a certificate of appreciation on behalf of EWB-NAU for our efforts with helping to make this project a success. About 50 people attended and several speakers mentioned their appreciation of our chapter’s help and enthusiasm and to working together on the next 2 sites.

September 2013: NAU civil engineering students visited Flagstaff’s Killup Elementary School to work on engineering projects with a 1st grade class. Students built paper bridges under the guidance of students in our ASCE Student Chapter. Check out the full story at STEM City Flagstaff.