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Professor Ben Schafer Appointed JHU Civil Engineering Chair

Dear Colleagues,

It is my pleasure to announce that effective July 1, 2009, Ben Schafer has been appointed chair of the Department of Civil Engineering.

Since Ben joined the Whiting School faculty in 2000, his research in the fields of structural stability and computational mechanics has garnered him wide recognition, including an NSF CAREER award in 2005 and a Faculty Fellowship from the American Institute of Steel Construction in 2006. At the School of Engineering, Ben was named the inaugural Swirnow Faculty Scholar last year and is a past recipient of the Robert S. Pond, Sr. Excellence in Teaching Award.

I also want to recognize the many contributions departing chair, Hugh Ellis, has made to WSE since his arrival at Johns Hopkins in 1984. At that time, Hugh joined the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering and was subsequently awarded a joint appointment in civil engineering. Over the years, he has collaborated with faculty from both departments, chairing DoGEE from 1995 – 2000 and civil engineering since 2004. He will continue to be actively involved in teaching and his research in environmental systems analysis.

Please join me in congratulating Ben and thanking Hugh.

Best wishes,
Nicholas P. Jones

Modeling air quality requires large-scale models that consider multiple domains using high performance computing. Professor Ellis regularly tackles problems of this nature for the EPA and others.

[EPA project site]
[journal article]
[faculty page]