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Civil Engineering and Environmental Science Faculty

The true strength of any program is its faculty. CEES currently has ten National Science Foundation CAREER Awardees; there are seventeen in the entire College of Engineering. With ten NSF CAREER recipients out of 25 faculty members, we believe CEES has one of the highest percentages in the nation. Further, Dr. Amy Cerato, one of our NSF CAREER recipients, was selected for a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. CEES faculty have won many other national awards (e.g., Fulbright ScholarASEE Fred Merryfield Design AwardAEESP Outstanding Educator,) and most of the prestigious on-campus awards (e.g., David Ross Boyd Professor, George Lynn Cross Professor, David L. Boren Professor, UOSA and Regent's Outstanding Teacher, Regent's Outstanding Researcher).  We also have five faculty members that have additional adjunct appointments in various departments across campus. The synergy of multiple disciplines is a strength of our environmental, geotechnical and structural programs. The CEES faculty list includes information about each faculty member.

Tommy Bounds

Tommy Bounds

CEC 415

Email Dr. Bounds

Technical Areas
Civil Engineering and Geotechnical Engineering

Research Interests
Specific research interests are focused on computational simulation of soft soils, soil-structure interaction, in-situ soil testing, impacts of multiple natural hazards on infrastructure, unsaturated soils, simulating natural systems to solve engineering challenges.

 

Ngoc Bui


SEC T-313 | (405) 325-4037
Email Dr. Bui

Research Interests
Water-energy-environment nexus, sustainable separations, advanced functional materials, membrane materials and processes, nanomaterials and nanotechnology, matters across dynamical interfaces, transport phenomena

Research Group Website

 

Elizabeth Butler


CEC 305 | (405) 325-3606
Email Dr. Butler

Technical Areas
Environmental science, environmental engineering

Research Interests
In-situ ground water remediation, natural attenuation, and advanced oxidation processes for water recyling and reuse.

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Amy Cerato


Rapp Foundation Presidential Professor

CEC 450C | (405) 325-5625
Email Dr. Cerato

Technical Areas
Civil engineering, geotechnical engineering

Research Interests
Shrinkage characteristics of fine grained soils, specific surface area influence on geotechnical engineering behavior, shallow foundation behavior, scale effects of shallow foundation bearing capacity, scale effects in determining friction angle using the direct shear box, grouted and helical anchor capacity.

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Homepage

Kendra Dresback


CEC 313 | (405) 325-8529
Email Dr. Dresback

Technical Areas
Civil engineering, water resources, hydrology

Research Interests
Hydrodynamic modeling of coastal seas and oceans, coupled meteorological/hydrologic/hydraulic model systems for coastal flooding, high-performance computing, computational fluid dynamics and environmental fluid mechanics and finite element methods, algorithm development for finite element methods, and applications in riverine environments for hydrodynamic and hydraulic models.

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Royce Floyd


CEC 327F | (405) 325-1010
Email Dr. Floyd

Technical Areas
Civil engineering, structural engineering

Research Interests
Material property characterization and applications of innovative concrete materials, bond of prestressting strands, prestress losses, camber and shear behavior of prestressed concrete members, internal curing using lightweight aggregates

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Lori Han

Lori Han, Ph.D.

Associate Director, CREW

CEC 320 | (405) 325-4254
Email Dr. Han

Technical Areas
Natural and nature-based engineering best management practices that improve water quality in disturbed and degraded aquatic enviorments.

Research Interests
Natural resource management (water, soil, vegetation, wildlife), conservation and sustainability (habitat restoration, ecological engineering, sustainable land use) as well as mapping and modeling (GIS, Excel).

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

P. Scott Harvey


CEC 414 | (405) 325-3836
Email Dr. Harvey

Technical Areas
Civil engineering, structural engineering

Research Interests
Structural dynamics, earthquake engineering, seismic hazard mitigation through isolation, analysis of earthquake ground motions, static and dynamic stability, structural control

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Homepage

Kianoosh Hatami


CEC 450B | (405) 325-3674
Email Dr. Hatami

Technical Areas
Civil engineering, geotechnical engineering, earthquake engineering

Research Interests
Sensor-enabled geosynethetics, GRS bridge abutments, reinforced pavements, unsaturated soil-geosynthetic interfaces, soil-structure interaction problems, seismic analysis

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

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Yang Hong


Gallogly Chair and Presidential Research Professor 

Director, Hydrometeorology and Remote Sensing Lab, Associate Director, WaTER Center, Adjunct Faculty, School of Meteorology, Faculty Member, ARRC, CAPS and CSA

NWC 4610 | (405) 325-3644

CEC 301B

Email Dr. Hong

Technical Areas 
Environmental science, civil engineering, water resources and hydrology, weather, climate, geoinformatics

Research Interests
Radar/satellite remote sensing; hydrological modeling and water resources engineering; hydrometeorology; climate change and Geospatial analysis and artificial intelligence; natural hazard and disaster monitoring, prediction and mitigation; and environmental planning and sustainable development.

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Tohren Kibbey


CEC 331 | (405) 325-0580
Email Dr. Kibbey

Technical Areas 
Environmental science, environmental engineering, water resources

Research Interests:
Surface and interfacial interactions in complex natural and engineered environmental systems. Areas of particular interest include physical-chemical interactions in complex systems, behaviors in unsaturated soils/multiple phase systems, and numerical model development for prediction and design in complex systems.

Homepage

Pierre-Emmanuel Kirstetter


NWC 4642 | (405) 325-1774

CEC 301B

Email Dr. Kirstetter

Technical Areas
Hydrometeorology

Research Interests
Hydrometeorology, applied mathematics, statistics, geospatial analysis, radar and satellite remote sensing, precipitation processes, microphysics and estimation, hydrological modeling, flood monitoring, prediction

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Webpage

Robert Knox


Ted A. Kritikos Chair, Presidential Professor and Associate Director,  WaTER Center

CEC 301A | (405) 325-4212
Email Dr. Knox


Technical Areas
Civil engineering, environmental engineering, water resources

Research Interests
Subsurface transport and fate processes, ground water remediation technologies, impacts of petroleum hydrocarbons and oilfield brines, impacts of climate change on water resources

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Randall Kolar


David Ross Boyd and Austin Presidential Professor
Associate Director, WaTER Center

CEC 334 | (405) 325-4267
Email Dr. Kolar

Technical Areas
Civil engineering, water resources

Research Interests
Computational issues in water resources, particularly hydrology and hydraulics, with focus on the development of efficient, robust algorithms with subsequent applications ranging from riverine flooding to coastal circulation to groundwater flow and transport.

Bio (PDF)

Aikaterini Kyprioti


CEC 427 | (405) 325-5911

Email Dr. Kyprioti

Technical Areas 
Civil engineering, structural engineering, earthquake engineering, computational statistics, resilience engineering

Research Interests
Efficient coastal hazard risk estimation and mitigation, infrastructure reliability and sustainability assessments, improvement of community level structural resiliency against natural hazards, multi-hazard risk assessment, development of efficient data-driven tools using computational statistics for solving engineering problems.

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Graduate student research position (available from Fall 2023) 

Gerald Miller


Presidential Professor

CEC 332A | (405) 325-4253
Email Dr. Miller

Technical Areas 
Civil engineering, geotechnical engineering

Research Interests
Invasive-type in situ testing in unsaturated soils; use of in situ test results for foundation design; development of innovative in situ testing technology; slope stability; field testing of prototype foundations, and field evaluation of soil stabilization and earthwork construction.

K.K. "Muralee" Muraleetharan

KK Muraleetharan.

Kimmell-Bernard Chair in Engineering, David Ross Boyd and Presidential Professor

CEC 332B | (405) 325-4247
Email Dr. Muralee

Technical Areas
Civil engineering, geotechnical engineering, geoenvironmental engineering, earthquake engineering, risk and resilience of infrastructure systems

Research Interests
Simulation of static and dynamic behavior of two- (saturated soils) and three-phase (unsaturated soils) porous media using finite element methods, centrifuge testing, laboratory testing of saturated and unsaturated soils, constitutive modeling, soil-structure interaction

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Robert Nairn

Robert W. Nairn.

Robert W. Hughes Centennial Professor, David L. Boren Professsor, Sam K. Viersen Family Foundation Presidential Professor;
Director, CREW; Associate Director, WaTER Center

CEC 301C | (405) 325-3354
Email Dr. Nairn

Technical Areas
Environmental science, nature-based solutions, natural infrastructure, watershed biogeochemistry, ecological engineering, ecosystem restoration, wetland science

Research Interests
Water quality, watershed and ecosystem-scale examinations, trace metal contaminant transport and fate. Design, construction and evaluation of ecologically engineered passive treatment systems for coal and hard rock mine waters, agricultural pollution, urban stormwater and municipal waste water.  Ecosystem restoration and creation for mutual benefit of society and nature, especially freshwater wetlands.  

Homepage

Mark Nanny


CEC 304A | (405) 325-4234
Email Dr. Nanny

Technical Areas 
Environmental science, environmental chemistry

Research Interests
Understanding and characterizing complex environmental processes on a molecular-level; quantitatively measuring the influence of non-covalent interactions between organic compounds and natural organic matter on the processes of bioavailability, biodegradation rates and products, pollutant aging, and electron transfer reactions of natural organic matter (see more in the CV linked below).

Educational Research Interests
Authentic teaching of K-12 science and math; incorporating scientific research activities into K-12 science education and teacher preparation; and improving K-12 science and mathematics education in rural schools.

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Jin-Song Pei


CEC 327E | (405) 325-4272
Email Dr. Pei

Technical Areas 
Engineering mechanics, structural engineering

Research Interests
Nonlinear dynamical system, nonlinear hysteresis, nonlinear system identification, memristors, memcapacitors, function approximation, artificial neural network, constructive method, piecewise smooth model, hybrid dynamical system, FPGA-based computation, embedded algorithm, structural health monitoring, damage detection, structural dynamics,  earthquake engineering

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Chris Ramseyer

Email Dr. Ramseyer

Technical Areas 
Civil engineering, structural engineering

Research Interests
Concrete materials with an emphasis on shrinkage compensating concrete, rapid setting concrete and early strength fly ash concrete.  Structural concrete with an emphasis on shrinkage, dimensional stability (warp and curl) and fatigue.  Structural cold formed steel with an emphasis on built up sections and torsional purlin bracing.  Residential wood framing with an emphasis on lateral bracing systems and high wind resistant design.  Dr. Ramseyer has performed field research on airfield pavements, bridges, slabs on ground and concrete tanks.

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

David Sabatini


Homepage

David Ross Boyd Professor; Sun Oil Company Chair; Director, WaTER Center and Associate Director, Institute for Applied Surfactant Research

CEC 312 | (405) 325-5140
Email Dr. Sabatini

Technical Areas 
Civil engineering, environmental engineering, chemical/environmental engineering

Research Interests
Develop innovative technologies and pedagogical styles to creatively impact the following areas: 
Water Technologies for Emerging Regions: water and sanitation/remote areas, novel materials (surface modification of high surface area materials) for water treatment and environmental energy technologies, advanced microemulsions
Environmental, Consumer, and Energy Technologies: transport, fate, identification and treatment of emerging contaminants

Curriculum Vitae Full (PDF)

Curriculum Vitae Short (PDF)

Biosketch (PDF)

WaTER Center Homepage

Arif Sadri

Arif Sadri

CEC 450A | (405) 325-5911
Email Dr. Sadri

Technical Areas
Civil engineering, transportation engineering, resilience engineering

Research Interests
Risk-Sharing Commons; Interdependent Networks; Network Interventions; Infrastructure Equity; Social-Physical Coupling

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Homepage

Keith Strevett

Keith A. Strevett, Ph.D.

Associate Director of Graduate Programs
Associate Director, Oklahoma Water Survey

CEC 327D | (405) 325-4237

Email Dr. Strevett

Technical Areas
Civil engineering, environmental engineering, fluvial geomorphology, water and wastewater treatment design

Research Interests
Surface and ground water quality, development of indicators of water quality deterioration, biological treatment system design, ecological engineering, water reuse, fluvial geomorphology, sediment transport, river design, geomatic engineering

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Darrell Townsend


Grand River Dam Authority
Email Dr. Townsend

Technical Areas
Watershed conservation, ecosystem management

Research Interests
Development and coordination of new and innovative approaches to multifaced watershed management, focusing on broad-scale conservation and restoration throughout complex multi-jurisdictional watersheds.

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Shreya Vemuganti


CEC 424 | (405) 325-5911
Email Dr. Vemuganti

Technical Areas
Civil engineering, structural engineering

Research Interests
Nano-synthesized cementitious materials, smart and sustainable material innovation using 3D printing technology, ductile fiber-reinforced polymer composites

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Jason Vogel


Director, Oklahoma Water Survey

CEC 304 | (405) 325-2826
Email Dr. Vogel

Technical Areas
Biosystems engineering, agricultural engineering, biological systems engineering

Research Interests
Stormwater and stream management, low impact development (LID) stormwater management systems, hydrology

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Jeffery Volz

Jeffery S. Volz, S.E., P.E., Ph.D.

Associate Dean for Partnerships
Director, Fears Structural Engineering Laboratory
Associate Director of Undergraduate Programs

CEC 423 | (405) 325-1489
Email Dr. Volz

Technical Areas
Architectural engineering, civil engineering, structural engineering

Research Interests
The combination of structural engineering and material science aimed at improving building and bridge structural systems, particularly in regard to sustainability,  innovative materials

Dr. Volz has performed research on high-volume fly ash concrete, self-consolidating concrete, prestressed concrete, fiber-reinforced cementitious composites, enamel-coated reinforcing steel, fiber-reinforced polymers, and microcellular polymeric foams.

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Kathy Volz


(814) 880-7070
Email Ms. Volz

Technical Areas
Business administration, economics and finance, industrial and enterprise engineering

Biography
Kathy Volz holds an MBA and BS in Industrial and Enterprise Engineering from the University of Illinois. She has more than 35 years of industry experience, including serving as National Marketing Director for Greely and Hansen (a 350-person, ENR Top 500 environmental engineering firm) and as Marketing and Communications Manager for Harza Engineering Company (a 1,000-person, ENR Top 100 consulting engineering firm specializing in water and power). Read more (PDF)

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Tiantian Yang


CEC 301B | (949) 378-0928
Email Dr. Yang

Technical Areas
Water resources and hydrology, environmental science, water-energy-food nexus, coupled human natural system

Research Interests
Hydrology, water security, water resources management, reservoir operation, hydropower scheduling, artificial intelligence, data-mining, coupled human-natural systems, optimization theory, hydrologic model calibration, climate change, impacts of climate change on water-energy system, water-energy-food nexus, remote sensing precipitation

Website

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Musharraf Zaman

Musharraf Zaman

David Ross Boyd Professor; Aaron Alexander Professor; Director, Southern Plains Transportation Center

CEC 213 | (405) 325-4682
Email Dr. Zaman

Technical Areas
Civil engineering, geotechnical engineering, geomechanics

Research Interests
Soil dynamics, rock mechanics, soil structure interaction, flow through porous media, constitutive laws of engineering materials (testing and modeling), mine system design and ground control, bridge approach settlements, expert systems, application of numerical techniques to complex geotechnical engineering problems, earthquake engineering, geotechnical aspects of hazardous waste disposal

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

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