Professor Laval honoured with Excellence in Service Award
Applied Science staff and faculty were recently recognized for their outstanding contributions to the Faculty in three categories: the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Service for staff, the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Service for faculty, and the Special Dean’s Award for Outstanding Service. Civil professor Bernard Laval was selected to receive one of the two the […]
Civil Engineering Technician John Wong joins UBC 25 Year Club
The Department of Civil Engineering congratulates Engineering Technician John Wong on his induction into the UBC 25 Year Club. Established in 1971 by President Walter Gage to recognize non-faculty staff with 25 years of service to the University, the club honored a total of 117 new members at their annual dinner in May. After earning […]
Civil alumnus chosen for the 2014 Young Alumnus Award
Congratulations to Duncan McNicholl, who was honoured at the 2014 Engineering Excellence Celebration as the recipient of the 2014 UBC Engineering Outstanding Young Alumnus Award*! Duncan received his BASc in Civil Engineering in 2009, with distinction, but he was dedicated to more than just his studies during his time at UBC. In 2003, his life […]
Civil professor accepts Chair in Earthquake Engineering position
After 11 successful years on faculty in the Department of Civil Engineering, Professor Ken Elwood (PhD ’02, P.Eng.) will be leaving UBC to pursue exciting new opportunities at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, where he will take on a newly created position as “Chair in Earthquake Engineering”. Professor Elwood first joined UBC Civil Engineering […]
Civil instructor awarded Lieutenant Governor’s BC Book Award
Dr. Ruth Derksen has been awarded the Lieutenant Governor’s BC Book Award for Historical Writing. It will be presented to her in June by The Honourable Judith Guichon, Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, during the BC Historical Federation Annual Conference. Dr. Derksen’s book, Daughters in the City, chronicles the stories of young refugee Mennonite women who […]
Civil Club honours top undergraduate professors
The Civil undergraduate student body has voted for their top undergraduate professors for the 2013/2014 academic year. In recognition of their demonstrated commitment to fairness, communication, and quality teaching, the Civil Club has announced that Dr. Greg Lawrence (second year), Dr. Bernard Laval (third year), and Dr. Ken Elwood (fourth year) were selected by the students as this year’s best undergraduate […]
Civil student selected as Engineering Co-op photo contest winner
Photo courtesy of Joanne Chow and Engineering Co-op. Learn more about Engineering Co-op’s Photo Contest. Civil Engineering student Joanne Chow was awarded Second Prize in the Engineering Co-op Programs’s 2013 photo contest. Pictured is a tunnel boring machine, which Joanne encountered during her recent Co-op term in Hong Kong. Joanne shares a description of the machine: […]
Civil professor co-leads Building Information Modeling project
Dr. Sheryl Staub-French is one of the leaders of the Construction and ICT project research team who published a report this week on the use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) in Canada’s construction industry. The report, entitled “The Inevitable Shift Towards Building Information Modelling (BIM) in Canada’s Construction Sector” details the main benefits, challenges and […]
UBC Professor to serve on the GIEES Board of Directors
The new, non–profit, Global Institute for Energy, Environment and Sustainability-GIEES, has been incorporated in the US, and will be based out of MIT, in due course. It will have an international Board, of 15 members, with a mandate to provide technical and research services/advice on topics of Energy, Environment and Sustainability , globally, but in […]
UBC Concrete Toboggan Team: Success at 40th Annual Race
This February, the UBC Concrete Toboggan Team competed in London, Ontario at the 40th annual GNCTR against 24 North American Universities and Technical Institutions. The team spent five days networking with over 400 students, Western University Alumni and industry representatives. The team raced with an all new, component-based design and after some last minute adjustments, made multiple successful runs down […]
Civil is hiring! Three faculty positions available
Find out more about Faculty opportunities in the Department of Civil Engineering, and discover why UBC is one of British Columbia’s top employers.
Why we need more women engineers: Sheryl Staub-French
Few women and a looming skills shortage could create a crisis for the industry On the eve of International Women’s Day, UBC Public Affairs conducted a Q&A with Civil Engineering Associate Professor and Westcoast Women in Engineering, Science & Technology Faculty Associate Sheryl Staub-French, on her work to boost female enrolment. Why are you concerned about the […]
Canadian Association for Girls in Science visits Civil Engineering
The Canadian Association for Girls in Science (CAGIS) visited UBC Civil Engineering on Saturday, March 8 to learn about earthquake engineering. Twenty girls between the ages of seven and fourteen and their parents enjoyed a demonstration of the shake table in the Earthquake Engineering Research Facility. The girls then worked in teams to construct straw buildings in the […]
Civil students win top prize at WEFTEC Design Competition
Four Civil Engineering graduate students were part of the team of five that took home a top prize at the Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition and Conference (WEFTEC) Student Design Competition in Chicago in fall 2013. Christopher Lawson, Laith Furation (CHBE), Michal Simhon, Connor Wilson, and Rony Das earned the opportunity to compete in this […]
Dr. Carlos Ventura gives overview of seismic risk in BC
Images courtesy of Carlos Ventura. At centre: BC Smart Infrastructure Monitoring System Shake Map, showing infrastructure currently being monitored. At right: Engineers inspect field vibration testing equipment at Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing. Dr. Carlos Ventura, Civil Engineering Professor and Director of the Earthquake Engineering Research Facility (EERF), presented the faculty seminar “The Art and Science […]
Three Minute Thesis: Civil graduate student advances to Semis
UPDATE: Kelly Graves placed third in the APSC heat, and will be advancing to the UBC Semi-Finals, to be held Tuesday March 11. Click here for details. On February 27th, six graduate students competed in this year’s Civil heat of the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition. Staff, faculty and students made up the audience of nearly 50, and enjoyed a […]
Civil Executive Assistant completes 100-mile race across Alaska
Susitna 100 fat-bike competitors. Photo: Frank Janssens Sylvia Margraff, Civil Engineering Executive Assistant to the Head, recently returned from a successfully completed Susitna 100, a renowned 100 mile wilderness race through the Susitna Valley, north of Anchorage. After five months of intense training, she joined over 100 of Alaska’s toughest adventurers, along with a handful of […]
Study in Beijing this summer – CIVL electives at Peking University
Complete fourth-year technical electives at Peking University with the Globex Summer Study Program, July 1 – July 31, 2014. UBC Civil Engineering students have a fantastic opportunity to travel to Beijing this summer to participate in the The Globex Summer Program for international engineering students. Students enrolled in this four week intensive program can take […]
Civil Engineering unveils new Structural Teaching Lab
The Department of Civil Engineering welcomed industry partners to campus on April 24th, 2013, to mark the grand opening of the new Structural Engineering Teaching Laboratory in the Civil and Mechanical Engineering Building. Those present witnessed a demonstration of the lab’s new Reconfigurable Structure Testing Frame and Small Scale Shaking Table Facility. The new testing […]
Civil Engineering welcomes the new Dean
The Department of Civil Engineering is pleased to welcome the new Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science, Professor Marc Parlange. Dean Parlange officially took the helm of the Faculty on September 1, 2013, for a five year term. He now leads the education of more than 5,000 undergraduate and 2,000 graduate students, in the School […]
Civil PhD student receives 2013 David Crighton Fellowship
Anirban Guha, UBC Civil Engineering Ph.D. candidate, received the prestigious 2013 David Crighton Fellowship from the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) at the University of Cambridge. The award will support Guha to study and conduct research at Cambridge for two to three months, where he will be working with Prof. Peter Haynes to study […]
Civil MASc student awarded UBC Aboriginal Graduate Fellowship
Kelly Graves was awarded the UBC Aboriginal Graduate Fellowship. Kelly is a Master of Applied Science student in Environmental Fluid Mechanics. She is researching under-ice mixing due to solar heating in an arctic lake in Finland where she was able to use conventional instrumentation as well as use an autonomous underwater vehicle to collect data. Kelly […]
NSERC Scholarships and Fellowships awarded to Civil students
NSERC Graduate Scholarships and UBC Four-Year Fellowships The National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) awarded the 2012 Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship (CGS) to Ph.D. candidate Shona Robinson, M.A.Sc. candidate Lisa Tobber, and M.A.Sc. candidate Stanley Chan; the NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship (PGS-D) was awarded to Ph.D. candidate Elnaz Amirzehni. The UBC […]
Concrete Toboggan Team’s success at 2013 Toboggan Race
The UBC Civil Concrete Toboggan Team placed 3rd in the top speed, and 10th overall of 21 teams in the Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race 2013, the oldest and largest engineering student competition in Canada. Team members were able to be part of the complete life cycle of a project and gained experience in the […]
Steel Bridge Team places 1st in Pacific Northwest Competition
The UBC Steel Bridge Team achieved the following rankings in the Steel Bridge Competition at the 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers Pacific Northwest Student Conference at Oregon State University: 1st in Display, 2nd in Stiffness, 2nd in Construction Speed, 4th in Economy and 3rd Overall. This notable outcome qualified the team for participation in […]
EERI Undergraduate Seismic Design Team competes for UBC
The UBC EERI Undergraduate Seismic Design Team was honored to represent UBC at the Undergraduate Seismic Design Competition, hosted by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute Student Leadership Council. It was a successful experience for the team, and they were proud to represent UBC and Canada at this international competition, where they placed 19th overall. Notable […]
Civil researchers create award-winning Seismic Retrofit Guidelines
Professor Carlos Ventura, Professor Emeritus Liam Finn, and researchers Dr. Armin Bebamzadeh and Dr. Freddy Piña along with a number of graduate students recieved three awards for their recent work on the Seismic Retrofit Guidelines for the Performance-based Seismic Risk Assessment and Seismic Retrofit Design of BC School Buildings. By the Association of Consulting Engineers of British Columbia, […]
Prof. Staub-French joins WWEST as Faculty Associate
Dr. Sheryl Staub-French has joined WWEST as Faculty Associate to work for improved gender diversity in engineering. WWEST (Westcoast Women in Engineering, Science & Technology) is a program to support the recruitment and retention of women in engineering, science and technology on the west coast. This program is funded through the NSERC Chair for Women in Science […]
Prof. Sayed honoured by Engineering Institute of Canada
Professor Tarek Sayed will be inducted as Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC) for his exceptional contributions to engineering in Canada. World-renowned for his research on road safety analysis and evaluation, Sayed’s work on proactive road safety management is being applied in projects in several countries and is considered by many as the future of […]