Geoenvironmental

The objective of the Geoenvironmental Engineering program is to produce engineers capable of identifying, preventing and solving problems involving facilities that may adversely affect the environment. The interdisciplinary geoenvironmental engineering program encompasses concepts, curricula, and faculty from the environmental, geotechnical, and water resources engineering disciplines in the department. The graduate program in geoenvironmental engineering leads to the degrees of master of science and doctor of philosophy. Students studying toward the M.S. degree can pursue a thesis or a course work option of 30 semester hours. M.S. students following the thesis option typically take 12 credits in a “home” discipline, 6 credits in each of the two other disciplines, and a 6 credit thesis. The Ph.D. degree requires additional course work beyond M.S. degree as well as a dissertation.

Faculty:

Bernard Amadei, Professor, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley. Rock mechanics, geological engineering, Earth Systems Engineering, Engineering for Developing Communities

Angela Bielefeldt, Associate Professor, Ph.D., University of Washington. Environmental microbiology, biodegradation, engineered biodegradation systems.

John Crimaldi, Assistant Professor, Ph.D. Stanford University. Interaction of fluid mechanics with biological or ecological systems. Scalar transport; structure of passive chemical plumes. Turbulent processes in benthic boundary layers.

Mark Hernandez, Associate Professor, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley. Environmental microbiology, bioaerosols, acid mine drainage.

John S. McCartney, Barry Faculty Fellow, Assistant Professor, Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin. Geotechnical engineering, geoenvironmental engineering, hydraulic and mechanical properties of unsaturated soil-geosynthetic systems, dynamic properties of reinforced soils, centrifuge modeling, reliability-based design.

Diane McKnight, (Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research) Professor, Ph.D., MIT. Stream ecology and hydrology, reactive solute transport, biogeochemistry.

Roseanna Neupauer, Assistant Professor, Ph.D. New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Groundwater Hydrology and Contaminant transport, Probabilistic Approaches for Contaminant Source Identification, Wavelet Representations of Hydrogeologic Heterogeneity.

W. Tad Pfeffer, Professor, Ph.D. University of Washington. Dynamic glaciology; heat and mass transfer in snow, ice and porous media; mechanics and thermodynamics of continuous media; fluid dynamics; numerical and experimental methods.

Harihar Rajaram, Professor, Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Fundamental research in fluid mechanics and transport phenomena relevant to environmental, hydrologic and geological problems. Transport phenomena in porous media, stochastic transport theories, large-scale numerical computation, coupled processes.

Joseph Ryan, Professor, Ph.D., MIT. Contaminant fate and transport in natural waters, colloid and biocolloid transport, acid mine drainage characterization.

JoAnn Silverstein, Professor, Ph.D., University of California, Davis. Biological process engineering in water, wastewater, and soils.

Scott Summers, Professor, Ph.D., Stanford University. Drinking water quality and treatment, natural organic matter, disinfection by-products, membrane processes.

Dobroslav Znidarcic, Professor, Ph.D., University of Colorado at Boulder. Soil mechanics, earth structures, flow processes in soils, contaminant transport, unsaturated soil mechanics, centrifuge modeling, numerical modeling.

Areas of Study:

Contaminant Transport
Remedial Action
Waste Containment Systems
Risk Assessments
Waste Management
Site Assessment and Monitoring
Waste Treatment and Disposal
Geosynthetics
Remediation of Contaminated Sites
Geochemistry
Geohydrology
Soil and Rock Properties
Soil Behavior
Geological Hazards
Mining Geotechnics
Flow Processes
Consolidation and Unsaturated Soil Mechanics
Systems Approach to Engineering Projects

Course Offerings:

CVEN 3698 Engineering Geology
CVEN 5313 Environmental Fluid Mechanics
CVEN 5333 Surface Hydrology
CVEN 5353 Groundwater Hydrology
CVEN 5383 Groundwater Modeling
CVEN 5343 Transport and Dispersion in Surface Water
CVEN 5404 Environmental Engineering Chemistry
CVEN 5537 Numerical Methods in Civil Engineering
CVEN 5474 Hazardous Waste Management
CVEN 5484 Environmental Microbiology
CVEN 5494 Fate and Effects of Pollutants in the Environment
CVEN 5524 Advanced Water Treatment
CVEN 5534 Advanced Waste Treatment
CVEN 5555 Risk Analysis
CVEN 5708 Soil Mechanics
CVEN 5718 Mechanics and Dynamics of Glaciers
CVEN 5728 Foundation Engineering
CVEN 5738 Applied Geotechnical Analysis
CVEN 5748 Design of Earth Structures
CVEN 5758 Flow Processes in Soils
CVEN 5768 Introduction to Rock Mechanics
CVEN 5778 Advanced Rock Mechanics
CVEN 5834 Bioremediation
CVEN 6313 Advanced Environmental Fluid Mechanics
CVEN 6424 Advanced Biological Processes
CVEN 6833 Flow and Transport Through Porous Media
CVEN 6843 Advanced Groundwater Modeling
CVEN 7718 Engineering Properties of Soils

Undergraduate Course Prerequisites for for Graduate Admissions:

Before taking graduate courses the following minimum undergraduate course requirements must be satisfied:

Mathematic and calculus courses through differential equations and linear algebra. Physics, statics, mechanics of materials, fluid mechanics, geology, soil mechanics and foundation engineering.

Transfer Credits:

For the Master of Science program the Department will accept up to 9 hours graduate credit from other institutions toward the minimum course requirements if not used toward another degree.

For the Doctoral program up to 15 semester hours of 5000 level or above course work may be transferred from another institution and applied towards the 30 hours minimum course work requirement. For a student who has obtained his/her M.S. degree at the University of Colorado at Boulder, up to 21 semester hours of 5000 level or above course work may be transferred.

Facilities:

Laboratory facilities include analytical instruments for analysis of organics and metals in water and soils; a laboratory for conducting bench-scale experiments; centrifuge facilities for scale modeling of flow processes and geoenvironmental systems; a laboratory for characterization of soil and rock properties; multiple water flumes for turbulent transport studies. Substantial computer facilities are available from micros to supercomputers.