A Message from the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering
Dear CEE Alumni,
We hope this message finds you, your family, and friends safe and well as we continue to work through the long pandemic, continued racial injustice, and emerge from an unsettling election. Please know that the CEE faculty are available, thrilled to hear from you, and ready to help. That includes just needing to talk about the state of the world.
Back at UC Merced, we continue to teach remotely, while our research is a mix of home, lab, and field work, all executed as safely as possible. While we have remained remarkably productive, we look forward to more normal interactions before fall semester if possible.
This is the first of what we envision as a regular check-in to update you on department activities and to seek your advice as you advance in your careers and gain valuable perspective about engineering education and training.
First, some exciting updates:
- Civil Engineering is arriving soon!
- CEE is launching the B.S. Civil Engineering major this fall, which will emphasize sustainability principles. We have over 600 applicants for the inaugural class and are busy preparing the new courses needed to get that major rolling!
- Welcome four new(ish) CEE faculty members!
- We were recently joined by Assistant Professors Marie-Odile Fortier (2018), Colleen Naughton (2019), Siddaiah Yarra (2020) and Sam Markolf (2021)—our dynamic new colleagues are already enhancing our course offerings and research portfolio. Some recent alumni may have taken Dr. Fortier’s sustainable energy course, or Dr. Naughtons introduction to environmental engineering.
- CEE research in sustainable agriculture!
- CEE faculty have been successful in moving into in the agricultural domain. In 2020, Professor Erin Hestir was part of a successful Engineering Research Center proposal entitled Agriculture for the Internet of Things. In January 2021, several CEE faculty members (Professors Harmon, Naughton, Viers, Hestir, and Medellin-Azuara) became the leads on a UC Multicampus Research Program Initiative that we call Labor and Automation in California Agriculture (LACA): Equity, Productivity, & Resilience.
- ABET accreditation renewal!
- We recently underwent review for our first renewal of the B.S. Environmental Engineering major ABET accreditation. Everything went smoothly as planned, but we decided that the time has come to start asking our alumni for input on your program (there are now over 200 of you!).
Sincerely,
Thomas Harmon
Professor and Associate Dean
School of Engineering | University of California, Merced
2021 CEE Department Alumni Questions
One of the CEE program educational objectives (PEOs) states the following:
Within a 3 to 5 years of graduating, our alumni are expected to demonstrate their contributions to the profession through creation of new knowledge, problem-solving, and design applied to environmental challenges, with sensitivity to sustainable and ethical technology development, and societal impact.
**Please note that any personal information collected below will be used to omit you from any future reminder emails regarding this survey.**
