More than 130 people from around the world descended on Chicago for the 10th International Structural Engineering and Construction (ISEC-10) Conference held from May 20 to May 25 at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and hosted by its Department of Civil and Materials Engineering. UIC Associate Professor Didem Ozevin served as the chair, and Hossein Ataei, of UIC, and Mehdi Modares, of the Illinois Institute of Technology, served as co-chairs for the conference, which was themed “Interdependence between Structural Engineering and Construction Management” and marked the 20th anniversary of ISEC society. Previous conferences were held in Valencia, Spain; Sydney, Australia; Honolulu, Hawaii; Zurich, Switzerland; Las Vegas, Nevada; Melbourne, Australia; Shunan, Japan, and Rome, Italy.  The goal is to bring…

The University of Illinois at Chicago College of Engineering will offer a new master’s degree in construction engineering and management. Classes will begin in Fall 2019 and students can now apply to the two-year program. The program is the only one of its kind at a public university in the Chicago region. “There is a huge construction market in the Chicago region and this new degree will not only prepare students to enter the field, but we expect that many of our students will be individuals already in construction management positions who want to further their education through pursuing this degree,” said Abolfazl Mohammadian, professor and head of civil and materials engineering. “Construction is a growing industry, not only in…

Three PhD candidates in the civil engineering program impressed the judges to win the top spots during the annual Christopher Burke and Susan S. Burke Civil Engineering Poster Competition held in the Department of Civil and Materials Engineering (CME) at UIC in May. Mohammed Mujtaba Atif won first-place and was awarded $1,500 for his poster titled “Meshfree Modeling of Impact and Penetration into Soil.” Researching the penetration into the granular media represents a class of complex physical problems, and it has a significance in military defense and commercial applications, which includes subsurface investigation of soil and rock, particularly at inaccessible locations and extraterrestrial surfaces, planetary impact, installation of deep-sea anchors and foundations, nuclear waste disposal, mining, and aircraft landing studies.…

Spring showers bring more than flowers. In many parts of the Chicago region they bring flooded basements. To help alleviate this problem, CME Clinical Assistant Professor Joseph Schulenberg and a team of UIC students are working with a community group in Cicero and Berwyn, Illinois, to find a solution. Schulenberg was asked to help the grassroots organization Ixchel, which is named after a Mayan goddess, on a solution. They also are working with the American Geophysical Union (AGU) which serves as project manager to address the flooding. “I’ve met with AGU and an outside consultant, who worked with the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and they’ve done studies on urban flooding,” said Schulenberg. Apart from the physical flooding, there is an…

Seniors in the Department of Civil and Materials Engineering (CME) wrapped up two semesters of hard work as they showcased their research, creativity, and skills on April 26 during the 30th annual UIC Engineering Design Expo at the Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum, 725 W. Roosevelt Road, Chicago. The expo featured 21 CME student teams who brought pressing issues to the forefront of the expo with projects that wowed the attendees and judges. The projects addressed plastic pollution, the need for sustainability in the development of vacant land in Chicago, testing the mechanical properties of nanostructures, incorporating sustainability goals into the development of urban landscapes, and transportation issues at the controversial Lincoln Yards development in Chicago. The CME students joined…

Students from the UIC chapter of American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) proved they are a team to be taken seriously. The students made an impressive showing as they captured third place overall at the recent ASCE Great Lakes Student Conference (GLSC) at Valparaiso University in Indiana. The ASCE student chapters are divided into 18 regions, and GLSC encompasses schools from southern Wisconsin, northern and central Illinois, and Indiana. Every April, approximately 19 schools from the GLSC region come together to compete in a set of civil engineering-based competitions. The Concrete Canoe and Student Steel Bridge competitions are always hosted, and serve as a qualifier for the national competition. The UIC students captured third place in the Wooden Bridge, Materials…