Department News & Events
2010
November 2010
Professor Ben Schafer Featured in Johns Hopkins News Release
“'Shaky' Plan: Earthquake Experiments Could Lead to Sturdier Buildings”
Cold-formed steel has become a popular construction material for commercial and industrial buildings, but a key question remains: How can these structures be designed so that they are most likely to remain intact in a major earthquake?
To help find an answer, Johns Hopkins researchers have been awarded a three-year $923,000 National Science Foundation grant to study how seismic forces affect mid-rise cold-formed steel buildings, up to nine stories high. The work will include development of computer models, as well as testing of two-story buildings placed atop full-size “shake tables” that replicate forces up to and greater than those of any modern-day earthquake.
Link to the article
October 2010
JHU professors Awarded NSF Grant to Advance Cold-formed Steel Earthquake Engineering
“NEES-CR: Enabling Performance-Based Seismic Design of Multi-Story Cold-Formed Steel Structures”
An academic-industry research team led by Hopkins Professors Schafer and Nakata received a $923,000 grant to study seismic performance of multi-story cold-formed steel structures.
Link to the project site
September 2010
Professor Anandarajah Publishes New Book on Computational Solid Mechanics
Title: “Computational Methods in Elasticity and Plasticity: Solid and Porous Media”
The book presents the latest developments in the area of elasto-plastic finite element modeling of solids, particulates and pressure-dependent materials and structures. It covers the following topics in depth: the mathematical foundations of solid mechanics, the finite element equations for solids and porous media, the theory of plasticity (as applied to constitutive modeling).
More Information about the book
April 2010
Professor Schafer Receives Huber Civil Engineering Prize
The Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prizes recognize members of the Society, in any grade, who demonstrate notable achievements in research related to Civil Engineering. Preference is given to younger members (generally under 40 years of age) of early accomplishment who can be expected to continue fruitful careers in research. More Information
March 2010
Professor Mitrani-Reiser Featured In the JHU Gazette
Judith Mitrani-Reiser, an assistant research professor of civil engineering in Johns Hopkins’ Whiting School of Engineering, recently spent a week in Chile looking at how well buildings and infrastructure had withstood the magnitude 8.8 earthquake that struck the nation on Feb. 27.
Read on at JHU Gazette...
January 2010
2010 Wood Bridge Competition Hosted By JHU CE Department
Johns Hopkins Civil Engineering ran testing for this annual state-wide high school competition in bridge design. The team of JHU Crushers tested about 90 bridges. The state winner had an efficiency score of over 1200 with the maximum load over 100 lbs! See photos of the competition here.
January 2010
Professor Nakata Recieves National Science Foundation Award
Professor Narutoshi Nakata of the Department of Civil Engineering at JHU has received the faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Nakata's proposed work, "Advanced Acceleration Control Methods and Substructure Techniques for Shake Table Tests", will be funded from 2010-2015. More Information
January 2010
Professors Schafer and Igusa of JHU CE Featured in Enineering Magazine
A group of Johns Hopkins faculty led by civil engineering associate professor and department chair Ben Schafer has proposed a new center to study and remedy infrastructure systems under stress. The innovative and highly collaborative venture would fundamentally reframe how infrastructure is assessed, modeled, and inspected in the future.
Read on at Johns Hopkins Engineering (Magazine of WSE)...
2009
July 2009
Professor Guest Featured In the JHU Gazette
Guest, along with several other Johns Hopkins researchers, were featured in the Whiting School of Engineering's magazine for his work as a modern prospector of patterns in multifunctional materials. Read on Here...
July 2009
Professor Benjamin Schafer Appointed Chair of Johns Hopkins Civil Engineering
Effective July 1, 2009, Ben Schafer has been appointed chair of the Department of Civil Engineering.
Read More Here
May 2009
Professor Graham-Brady Receives ASCE Award
Professor Lori Graham-Brady of the Department of Civil Engineering at JHU recieved the the Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize, which recognizes members who demonstrate notable achievements in research related to Civil Engineering.
Click Here to See Some Photos From the Event
February 2009
Seniors and Graduate Students Recognized at Blue Hat Ceremony
On April 28th, 2009, members of the class of 2009 were recognized, along with graduate students projected to receive degrees this semester, in the Annual Blue Hat Ceremony. It has become a tradition at the Civil Engineering Department to award graduating students blue hard hats.
Click Here for Pictures
February 2009
2009 Wood Bridge Competition Hosted By JHU CE Department
Johns Hopkins Civil Engineering hosted this annual high school level competition in bridge modeling, with about 70 bridges tested. The state winner had an efficiency score of 2300, with the maximum load over 120 lbs!
See photos of the competition here.
2008
October 2008
Professor Benjamin Schafer named Swirnow Family Faculty Scholar
The Swirnow Family Faculty Scholar award is given to a senior assistant professor or associate
professor who exhibits exceptional achievement in their area of expertise.
For Professor Benjamin Schafer, the award recognizes his work in the fields of structural stability
and computational mechanics.
September 2008
Professor Robert Dalrymple Featured in Wired's 2008 Smart List
Johns Hopkins Civil Engineering Professor Robert Dalrymple has been named one of the "15 People the Next President Should Listen To" at Wired Magazine. Dalrymple was selected because of his expertise on the damaging effects of hurricanes and tsunamis on infrastructure. Dalrymple offers the next president a three-point plan to prepare for an era of extreme weather.
Read the Article at Wired.com
September 2008
Pictures from the Freshman Welcome Party: The department welcomed the class of 2012 with a pizza party outside of Latrobe. September 3rd, 2008. Picture Slideshow
May 2008
Professor Lori Graham-Brady was awarded the William H. Huggins Excellence in Teaching Award at the Whiting School of Engineering Convocation Awards Ceremony on May 5, 2008. The award was presented by Dean Nicholas P. Jones to recognize Dr. Brady’s outstanding faculty teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and her demonstrated dedication to students.
May 2008
Hard Hat Ceremony: The Civil Engineering Department held their first annual Hard Hat Graduation Ceremony on April 29 to recognize the Class of 2008. Each member of the graduating class was given a personalized Hopkins hard hat as a symbol of their transformation at JHU.
May 2008
Libin Tan and Aaron Lazarus were awarded doctoral degrees from the Department of Civil Engineering in the May 2008 Commencement Ceremonies. Aaron's dissertation, supervised by Prof. Michael McCormick, was entitled "Development and optimization of a shape memory alloy wave energy dissipation system for offshore applications." Libin's doctoral work was supervised by Prof. Tak Igusa and his dissertation was entitled "The classification and evolution of local features in the mechanics of heterogeneous media."Cristopher Moen defended his doctoral dissertation, entitled "Direct strength design of cold-formed steel members with perforations" in July 2008, under the supervision of Prof. Ben Schafer. Cris's degree will be awarded in the May 2009 ceremony. Masters of Science in Engineering degrees were conferred to Muthukumar Narayanaswamy and Arghavan Louhghalam, both of whom are in the Ph.D. program.
May 2008
Lindsey Smith and Katherine Acton, graduate students at the Johns Hopkins Civil Engineering Department, were recently awarded the BIGSTEP fellowship which is sponsored by the NSF Division of Graduate Education, and run through the Center for Educational Outreach under the direction of Dean Marc Donohue. This grant sponsors graduate students from the Whiting School to work with students in K-12 schools in disadvantaged areas, encouraging these students to develop knowledge in the areas of mathematics, physical sciences, computers, technology and engineering.
April 2008
Dennis R. Mertz delivered the 2008 Carroll Lecture at the Engineering Society of Baltimore. Dr. Mertz is the Director of the University of Delaware’s (UD) Center for Innovative Bridge Engineering (CIBrE) as well as a Professor of Civil Engineering. Dr. Mertz’s lecture, entitled “The Safety of Our Nation’s Bridges” discussed the recent catastrophic collapse of the Interstate 35W steel deck truss bridge in Minneapolis and the subsequent public scrutiny of the health of our nation’s bridges. The FHWA mandated term “structurally deficient” was also discussed.
April 2008
Professor James K. Guest and Hopkins Graduates and Undergraduates represented JHU at the 2008 Maryland Wood Bridge Competition.
March 2008
Civil Engineering Students participated in the first annual Latrobe Bowl against the Mechanical Engineering students, who share the same building.
Slide Show
February 2008
Dr. Judith Mitrani-Reiser was appointed in February 2008 as an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering.
2007
December 2007
Professors, Graduates, Undergraduates, and High School Internsparticipated in the 2007 Paper Column Contest on December 4th. Contestants were allowed to design a column using no more than 6 sheets of printer paper, and scotch tape around the perimeter. Graduate student Luiz Viera won the competition, with a column that carried 176.7 lbs!
August 2007
Dr. Reagan Herman joined the Civil Engineering Department on August 1, 2007 as Senior Lecturer and Assistant Research Professor.
August 2007
Dr. Narutoshi Nakata joined the Civil Engineering Department on August 1, 2007 as an Assistant Professor.
May 2007
Rachel Sangree, Zenon Medina-Cetina, Alireza Doostan and Shan Zou received their Ph.Ds at the WSE Graduate Ceremony. Jessica Routt, Michael Barnhart and Erin Hackett received Masters Degrees in Civil Engineering.
May 2007
Blair Johnson '08, Regina Shyklan '08, and Eric Deuser '08 were civil engineering students awarded the Vrendenburg Scholarship to conduct research abroad during the summer. Johnson completed research in Spain, while both Shyklan and Deuser both traveled to Switzerland.
April 2007
Professor Greg Deierlein delivered the Carroll Lecture at the Engineering Society of Baltimore. He is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Director of the John A. Blume Earthquake Engineering Center at Stanford University. Dr. Deierlein’s lecture entitled “Performance-Based Earthquake Engineering: Enabling Transparent Risk Assessment and Innovative Building Design” focused on the recent developments in performance-based earthquake engineering and examined a few applications to assess life-safety risks and to promote innovation in structural design. Included was a study of the seismic collapse safety provided by building codes and related research to guide the design of tall buildings in earthquake-prone regions.
April 2007
Bentley Systems, Incorporated, a Pennsylvania-based company whose products move structural design from the draft table to the computer screen,
financed a $60,000 USD renovation of the department’s senior design lab.
2006
April 2006
World-renown structural engineer Dr. Leslie Robertson delivered the 2006 Carroll Lecture at the Engineering Society of Baltimore. His lecture discussed the development of the high-rise building and explored structural systems that may be appropriate for the future of tall-building design.
March 2006
Professor Lian Shen recieved a 2006 Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award. His proposal, “Multiscale Deterministic Wave Modeling with Wind Input and Wave
Breaking Dissipation,” was the only research proposal awarded funding in the ONR’s Ocean Battle
Sensing department this year.
2005
October 2005
Professor Benjamin Schafer was appointed the Associate Editor of the ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering.
July 2005
Assistant Professor James K. Guest joined the Johns Hopkins Civil Engineering Department. He previously had obtained his Ph.D. from Princeton and had been a lecturer there.
July 2005
Associate Professor Lori Graham-Brady was awarded the Junior Research Prize from the International Association of Structural Safety and Reliability. She was presented her award at the 9th Internationl Conference on Structural Safety and Reliability (ICOSSAR), held in Rome.
March 2005
X. Frank Xu selected as finalist for Melosh Competition
February 2005
JHU CE attends Maryland Wood Bridge Challenge
February 2005
Professor Dalrymple inspects damage from tsunami: Engineering experts see how buildings, materials fared against walls of water
2004
September 2004
Professor Hugh Ellis is instated as the Department Chair for the Department of Civil Engineering, succeeding Professor Robert Dalrymple.
July 2004
Professor Nick Jones, former Civil Engineering Chair returns to JHU to be the 4th Dean of the Whiting School of Engineering.
June 2004
Civil Engineering Senior Design Students win $25,000 for their senior design ideas.
May 2004
Christina Terpeluk '05 was awarded a Vredenburg Scholarship to study abroad.
April 2004
Hopkins CE aids in the Maryland Wood Bridge Challenge
January 2004
Senior Liakos Ariston's Isler inspired thin-walled ice structures
January 2004
Ryan Hanley '04 has been awarded a George J. Mitchell Scholarship for 2004-2005. The Mitchell Scholarships allow Americans to pursue one year of post-graduate study in any discipline offered at institutions of higher learning in Ireland and Northern Ireland. The George J. Mitchell Scholarships, named in honor of the former Senator's pivotal contribution to the Northern Ireland peace process, are intended to familiarize and engage the next generation of America's leaders with the island of Ireland. Ryan plans to spend a year of study at Trinity College, Dublin. More Information...
2003
October 2003
The Department's undergraduate program has been ranked 17th by U.S. News and World Report in its annual educational rankings of undergraduate programs in schools with Ph.D. programs. This is the fourth year the Department has been ranked among the top 25, moving up at least 2 places each year since 2001.
September 2003
A new design method for cold-formed steel structures, authored by Assistant Professor Ben Schafer, has recently been adopted by the American Iron and Steel Institute Committee on Specifications for Cold-formed Steel Structures. The method is based on Professor Schafer's research in combining numerical methods with traditional design procedures in order to provide more flexible and robust design rules for thin-walled steel structures. Research related to this new method recently received the American Society of Civil Engineer's (ASCE) Collingwood Prize, a society wide award for an outstanding paper authored by an ASCE member under 35. In addition, a presentation of the new method given at the annual ASCE Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) congress in Seattle tied for best presentation at the congress. Articles discussing the numerical method which supports the new design process have appeared in Civil Engineering and Mechanical Engineering magazines. Professor Schafer will receive his Collingwod Prize, and reprise his ASCE-SEI congress presentation at the upcoming ASCE National convention in November. For more information go to Professor Schafer's web site.
August 2003
Steve Kelly '98, '99 was recently profiled as part of the ASCE "New Faces of Civil Engineering." This website highlights the achievements of outstanding young civil engineers. See the current New Faces of Civil Engineering at the ASCE website.
June 2003
Professor Benjamin Schafer has been awarded the 2003 Collingwood Prize by the American Society of Civil Engineers for his paper Local, Distortional, and Euler Buckling of Thin-Walled Columns.
May 2003
The Department is pleased to announce that Dr. Lian Shen will be joining the faculty as Assistant Professor in January, 2004. Dr. Shen comes to Hopkins from M.I.T., where is is currently a Research Scientist in their Department of Ocean Engineering. Dr. Shen's research interests include ocean engineering, coastal processes, and environmental fluid flows. He received his B.S. degree from the University of Science and Technology (Hefei, China) and his Doctor of Science degree from M.I.T.
May 2003
Allan Olson '06 is a recipient of a Summer Provost's Undergraduate Research Award. The title of Alan's project is "Network Modeling of Polycrystals."
April 2003
Sam Phillips '04 , a junior in Civil Engineering, is part of a group of seven Hopkins students who traveled to NASA headquarters in Houston to conduct experiments studying how liquids mix on a surface when gravity is not a factor. See the article in the Hopkins Gazette on-line.