Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science

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Civil & Environmental Engineering Research

Through our Civil and Environmental Engineering programs, you learn how to create infrastructure that supports growing populations while addressing environmental concerns. From earthquake-resistant buildings to sustainable urban planning, this field prepares you to meet the needs of communities both locally and globally.

Research topics include non-destructive testing, structural health monitoring, numerical modeling, condition assessment, load rating, service-life modeling, strengthening and repair, and asset management of civil infrastructure. Non-technical aspects such as social and historic significance of structures, equity, sustainability, and resilience are also discussed.

Research Faculty

FacultyTitleResearch Areas
Peter DusickaProfessor &
Department Chair		Earthquake resistance and retrofit of bridges, seismic assessment of high voltage infrastructure, strength assessment of green building systems, design strategies for rapid occupancy following extreme events.
Arash KhosravifarAssistant Professor; Affiliate faculty in EPESGeotechnical earthquake engineering, soil liquefaction, geotechnical numerical and physical modeling, soil-structure interaction (SSI), probabilistic seismic hazard analysis and ground motions
Diane MougAssistant Professor; Affiliate faculty in EPESGeotechnical earthquake engineering, in-situ testing, numerical modeling, soil constitutive modeling, characterization of unique or problematic soils
Franz RadEmeritus ProfessorEarthquake vulnerability of buildings in urban areas and seismic retrofit.
Thomas SchumacherProfessor & Associate Chair of the Graduate ProgramsNovel sensing methodologies for non-destructive testing (NDT) and structural health monitoring (SHM) of civil infrastructure, i.e. acoustic emission and ultrasonic monitoring, carbon nanotube-based composites, and video-based monitoring.
David YangAssistant ProfessorRisk management and resilience assessment under disaster and climate change, decision-making under uncertainty, and life-cycle management of civil infrastructure.

Addressing pressing issues like water quality in surface and groundwater systems, sustainability, and the interactions between climate, hydrology, and water resources.

Research Faculty

FacultyTitleResearch Areas
Peyman AbbaszadehAssistant ProfessorComputational hydrology and satellite data assimilation, studying the surface and subsurface hydrologic processes and their interactions to improve the predictability of extreme hydroclimate events under climate change.
Samantha HartzellAssistant ProfessorEcohydrology, modeling the impact of vegetation on water, carbon, and energy fluxes between the land surface and atmosphere, sustainable agriculture in dryland ecosystems.
David JayEmeritus ProfessorTidal analysis, fluid mechanics research on the impact of the Columbia River plume on oceanic dynamics as they relate to tides, fish migration up the Columbia, and impacts of dams and dikes on fish habitat in the lower Columbia River.
Gwynn JohnsonAssociate ProfessorGroundwater hydrology, subsurface contaminant transport and fate, and environmental chemistry.
Wentai LuoSenior Research AssociateFate and transport of organic contaminants in environment, chemistry of tobacco and tobacco smoke, measurement of volatile organic compounds emission from industrial activities, consumer products, and biogenic sources, flavor chemicals and their impacts.
James PankowProfessorDesign of autonomous water samplers for surface waters, gas/particle (G/P) partitioning, air quality model development, chemistry of tobacco products.
Scott WellsProfessorSurface water quality and hydrodynamic modeling, fluid particle dynamics.

Focusing on earthquake engineering, including the study of soil liquefaction, soil-structure interaction, numerical modeling, and seismic hazard analysis.

Research Faculty

FacultyTitleResearch Areas
Arash KhosravifarAssistant ProfessorGeotechnical earthquake engineering, soil liquefaction, geotechnical numerical and physical modeling, soil-structure interaction (SSI), probabilistic seismic hazard analysis and ground motions
Diane MougAssistant ProfessorGeotechnical earthquake engineering, in-situ testing, numerical modeling, soil constitutive modeling, characterization of unique or problematic soils
Trevor SmithProfessor EmeritusDeep foundations under lateral load, digital engineering education, geosynthetics, in-situ soil testing and analysis, Load Resistance Factor Design (LRFD), soil/structure interaction

At PSU, we are doing exciting research in bridge engineering, sensing and monitoring, earthquake engineering and sustainable structures. CEE faculty have organized their research around the infrastructure Testing and Applied Research (iSTAR) Laboratory, where faculty and students focus on the effects of extreme loads on our infrastructure, the utilization of innovative materials, and the non-destructive testing and monitoring of structural system before, during, and after a disaster.

Research Faculty

FacultyTitleResearch Areas
Peter DusickaProfessor &
Department Chair		Earthquake resistance and retrofit of bridges, seismic assessment of high voltage infrastructure, strength assessment of green building systems, design strategies for rapid occupancy following extreme events.
Franz RadEmeritus ProfessorEarthquake vulnerability of buildings in urban areas and seismic retrofit.
Thomas SchumacherProfessor & Associate Chair of the Graduate ProgramsNovel sensing methodologies for non-destructive testing (NDT) and structural health monitoring (SHM) of civil infrastructure, i.e. acoustic emission and ultrasonic monitoring, carbon nanotube-based composites, and video-based monitoring.
David YangAssistant ProfessorRisk management and resilience assessment under disaster and climate change, decision-making under uncertainty, and life-cycle management of civil infrastructure.

At PSU, there is incredible energy and activity surrounding transportation research. CEE faculty participate in the campus-level research center TREC, the Transportation Research and Education Center for Portland State University, which in turn houses NITC, the National Institute for Transportation and Communities, one of only a small handful of National University Transportation Centers funded by the USDOT.

Transportation Technology and People Lab: The TTP Lab applies advanced modeling and data analysis techniques to improve multi-modal transportation systems. The group also designed ORcycle, a smartphone app that collects bicycle route and infrastructure data for the Oregon Department of Transportation.

Research Faculty

FacultyTitleResearch Areas
Jason AndersonResearch AssociateTransportation safety modeling, spatial econometrics and statistics, big data analysis focusing on various concepts such as traffic flow, travel time, freight commodity analyses, methodological approaches. Interests also include merging technologies and data fusion techniques as they pertain to smart vehicles, infrastructure, cities, and safety impacts.
Tanmoy BhowmikAssistant ProfessorAdvanced econometric modeling, transportation planning and demand analysis, transportation safety analysis, disaster management and evacuation behaviour analysis, adoption of emerging technologies (electric and connected vehicles) and their impacts on land use, public health and transportation energy.
Miguel FigliozziProfessorElectric vehicles and new vehicle technologies, emissions and air quality modeling, freight and logistics, innovations in traffic and transportation management and operations, non-motorized transportation. Director of the Transportation, Technology, and People Lab.
Srisha KothuriSenior Research Associate IMultimodal traffic operations, bicycle and pedestrian counting, multimodal safety, data archival for non-motorized transportation data
Christopher MonsereProfessor & Vice Provost for Faculty SuccessMultimodal transportation safety, management and dissemination of large transportation data, improvements in transportation operations.