Prof. Arne Bomblies and his interdisciplinary team of collaborators (Jeff Marshall, Luis Duffaut Espinosa, Safwan Wshah, Jarlath O'Neil-Dunne, Andrew Schroth, Carol Adair, and Jamie Shanley of the USGS) installed a series of snow sensors and meteorological instruments throughout Vermont, from the top of Mount Mansfield to the shores of Lake Champlain. “What we’re after is a better predictive model of snow in Vermont and in the northeast in general,” Bomblies said. “The goal is to ultimately understand how things like trees, slope aspect, elevation, rainfall, and cloudiness impact snow and be able to model that.” This interdisciplinary project is supported by the Department of Defense Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) with a $4.6 million grant.

With their 2023 Gund Institute Catalyst Award, Professors Raju Badireddy and Carol Adair with collaborators Andrew Schroth and Tian Xia will investigate winter nutrient pollution, a significant new threat to water quality driven by climate change. As winters warm, floods are increasing--unleashing harmful pollution into lakes, rivers, and streams from soils, including fertilizers, manure, and more.

With the full effects of winter flooding largely unknown, Adair and Badireddy will use novel microsensors to measure changes to winter nutrient runoff to transform our understanding of how watersheds work in a warming world and strengthen our ability to predict and prepare for changing winters. Read more!

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Capitol Showing

Eleven TRC students and faculty presented 14 research papers covering a wide range of sustainable transportation and equity challenges during the 2023 Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) in Washington, DC.

TRC plays a key role in new $20 million US DOT award to the National Center for Sustainable Transportation (NCST)

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) recently awarded $20 million to the National Center for Sustainable Transportation (NCST) to study transportation’s effects on the environment. The University of Vermont (UVM), one of the original members of the NCST consortium, will play a key role in research focused on sustainable and equitable solutions to rural travel.

Getting on the Bus

The Vermont Clean Cities Coalition, a Department of Energy (DOE) funded clean transportation outreach program managed by the TRC, and Granite State Clean Cities held a 3-week long electric school bus demonstration tour throughout Vermont and New Hampshire.

This tour was organized to allow some of our rural stakeholders and partners the opportunity to learn about the fuel and maintenance savings, zero-tailpipe emissions, and many other benefits of an electric school bus. Bus drivers and eligible technicians were able to drive the bus and experience firsthand the battery electric bus range, charging process, and handling in our northern New England climate and terrain. We’re hoping this demonstration will pique interest among our stakeholders in applying for the next round of EPA Clean School Bus funding.

Work Zone Congestion Relief

TRC Senior Research Analyst Jim Sullivan and consulting firm VHB received a new grant from the Vermont Agency of Transportation to develop new data and tools to help VTrans better manage and mitigate highway work zone traffic disruptions and improve work zone safety.

CEE faculty are passionate about outreach and training. This past fall, Prof. Matt Scarborough and CEE master’s student Amy DeCola presented a workshop at the Youth Environmental Summit in Barre, VT on organic waste management as part of Matt’s NSF CAREER project.

This spring, Professors Eric Roy and Matt Scarborough worked with two teachers at Winooski Middle School to implement lessons on organic waste management and its impacts on the environment. As part of the unit, students toured the Green Mountain Compost Facility run by Chittenden Solid Waste District. The students also participated in an experiment where they observed what happens to food waste if it goes to a landfill. Outreach activities at Winooski Middle School were supported by a grant from the EPA.

Experiential Learning from First through Senior Year

Our students benefit from nearly 20 hands-on, active-learning or project-based courses in their curriculum. This year the first semester students worked on service projects in teams on improving tech trash management, minimizing salt usage for winter maintenance, and designing private spaces for telehealth visits with Prof. Courtney Giles.

In second semester, in Introduction to CEE with Prof. Luis Garcia, our students, individually or in teams of two, designed a water filtration column; designed, built and raced concrete canoes; built biodigesters; and worked with sensors using Arduinos and modeled the change in runoff for main campus between 2012 and 2021.

In the capstone design course with Prof. John Lens, our seniors worked on 18 different projects with 11 different community partners, ranging between the State of Vermont, UVM, municipalities, and non-profit organizations, such as Camp Dream in Fletcher, Vermont. Students engaged with our faculty along with a cadre of local practicing engineers from government and local firms, who also generously donated their time in supporting the students during their design process. The faculty and practicing engineers participated in mid-course and final design review sessions as well as reviewing project posters.

All our projects are important to community partners, who appreciate the effort and fresh insights the students offer. Some of the more unique projects this year include: a conceptual design for a wildlife crossing bridge over Routes 2 and I-89; recycling water from the UVM BioFiber lab; a composting and urine-diverting bathroom for youth campers at Camp Dream; and heated slab prototyping to reduce deicing chemical requirements on walkways and stairs.   

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Sixty Graduating Seniors Take the Pledge of the Order of the Engineer

UVM CEE has been conducting Order of the Engineer ceremony continuously since 1986. In its 39th year, sixty graduating engineering seniors took the pledge to:

“ …practice integrity and fair dealing, tolerance and respect; and to uphold devotion to the standards and the dignity of my profession, conscious always that my skill carries with it the obligation to serve humanity by making the best use of the Earth’s precious wealth. As an engineer, I shall participate in none but honest enterprises. When needed, my skill and knowledge shall be given without reservation for the public good. In the performance of duty and in fidelity to my profession, I shall give my utmost.”

Amy Decola, a CEE Master's student, was awarded a best poster award at the New England Water Environment Association (NEWEA) Conference in January 2023. Amy’s work with Professor Matt Scarborough investigates microbial community dynamics in a full-scale anaerobic digester during start-up. Amy is now an environmental engineer with Hoyle Tanner in Burlington, Vermont.

At the fall meeting of American Geophysical Union, M.S. student Scott Lawson presented his thesis work on a regional flow-duration-frequency analysis for Vermont streamflow gages. 

This research was motivated by Vermont’s Functioning Floodplain Initiative and aims to determine the effect of varying channel and floodplain morphologies and basin characteristics on the duration and frequency of floods. Using this research, we can improve predictions of the duration and frequency particularly for smaller design floods (< 10-year) for ungauged rivers to support design of built and natural infrastructure to reduce flood damages, restore ecosystem functions, and manage sediment and nutrients in riparian zones. Scott is advised by Professors Kristen Underwood, Donna Rizzo in CEE and Rebecca Diehl in Geography and Geosciences. Watch Scott’s interview from AGU at Mastodon. 

Evan Ulrich received UVM’s Graduate Teaching Assistant of the Year award. Evan joined CEE as a Master’s student following his undergraduate degree in Physics. He has been an exceptional teaching assistant in our hydraulics and soils lab courses. Evan’s research with Prof. George Pinder is on groundwater modeling; his studies focus on the impact scale plays on continuum-based mathematical models that predict groundwater flow and transport.

Are you a CEE alumni? Reach out and get involved!