UBC Concrete Toboggan Team: Success at the 40th Annual Great Northern Concrete Toboggan 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: Q&A with 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 (CAGIS) 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 Student Design Competition in Chicago
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 […]
Faculty Seminar Series: 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 (3MT) UPDATE: Civil graduate student advances to UBC Semi-Finals
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 frozen Alaska wilderness
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 technical electives offered 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 […]
MASc student wins 2013 Canadian Dam Association Scholarship
MASc student Ryan Rasmussen won the 2013 Canadian Dam Association Scholarship for his research on “Optimization of Revelstoke Dam Operation during the Spring Freshet”.
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 Graduate Scholarships and UBC Four-Year 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 the Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race 2013
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 Steel Bridge 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 develop award-winning Seismic Retrofit Guidelines for BC schools
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, […]
Professor Sheryl Staub-French joins Westcoast Women in Engineering, Science, & Technology
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 […]
Civil professor leads IC-IMPACTS to prevent disease and ensure water supply in India and Canada
Researchers from the University of British Columbia, University of Alberta, University of Toronto and 11 leading institutions in India have joined forces in a $30 million partnership to tackle urgent issues in both countries. Supported by the Canadian government and state and industry partners in India, the India-Canada Centre for Innovative Multidisciplinary Partnerships to Accelerate […]
Professor Tarek Sayed honoured by the 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 […]
Professor Nemy Banthia receives Aftab Mufti Medal for Best Paper in the Journal of Civil Structural Health Monitoring
The International Society for Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure (ISHMII) has awarded the paper entitled “Corrosion detection in reinforced concrete using induction heating and infrared thermography,” co-authored by Dr. Nemy Banthia and K. Kobayashi, the 2011 Aftab Mufti Medal for Best Paper in the Journal of Civil Structural Health Monitoring.
Professor Nemy Banthia renewed as Canada Research Chair in Infrastructure Rehabilitation and Sustainability
Dr. Nemy Banthia is the recipient of a renewed Canada Research Chair in Infrastructure Rehabilitation and Sustainability. He has held this Chair since 2006. Click here for more information on Dr. Banthia’s Canada Research Chair.
2013 WEFTEC Design Competition Win
Congratulations! University of British Columbia team wins first place at the North American Water Environment Ferderation Student Design Competition (Environmental Division). This is the first time a Canadian team has won this event!
Professor Ken Elwood receives ACI Delmar L. Bloem Distinguished Service Award
Dr. Ken Elwood has been selected to receive the American Concrete Institute Delmar L. Bloem Distinguished Service Award. From ACI: “The Delmar L. Bloem Distinguished Service Award is given in recognition of noteworthy work on ACI technical committees. This award goes to a current (or recent) chair, or under special circumstances, to deserving individuals other than […]
Play House: The Architecture of Daniel Evan White
This retrospective exhibition on the work of the Vancouver architect Daniel Evan White at the Museum of Vancouver, is curated by UBC Faculty members Greg Johnson (SALA/Civil Engineering) and Martin Lewis (SALA), in collaboration with Viviane Gosselin, Curator of Contemporary Issues, at the MOV. The exhibition will run for six months beginning October 16, 2013. […]
Civil Engineer helps re-launch Journal of Environmental Engineering and Science
Co-edited by UBC Civil Engineering prof. Don Mavinic, the Journal of Environmental Engineering and Science (JEES) will be re-launched this year by The Institution of Civil Engineers. It will begin publishing quarterly at the onset and progress to six editions per year. The journal aims to provide a forum for the dissemination of environmental research, while encouraging […]
CIVL Engineering researchers publish earthquake report on Guatemala
Civil Engineering professor and Director of the UBC Earthquake Engineering Research Facility Carlos Ventura and his PhD student Manuel Archila are part of the team who produced a report on the 7.4 magnitude earthquake that struck Guatemala on November 7, 2012. The report, entitled “The November 7, 2012 M7.4 Guatemala Earthquake and its Implications for […]
New Master’s in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering program starts in September
UBC’s Faculty of Applied Science is working with marine industry leaders to develop a new Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering (NAME) graduate program in Mechanical Engineering. The Department of Civil Engineering is also a partner to this new program, and Civil Engineering professor Dr. Michael Isaacson serves as the program’s Director. Students in the NAME program […]
Bombardier Establishes NEW Fellowship in Transportation Planning at UBC
The Faculty of Applied Science is pleased to announce the establishment of the J. Armand Bombardier Sustainable Transportation Fellowship with a generous gift of $500,000 from the J. Armand Bombardier Foundation. The fellowship will be awarded to graduate students whose research is focused on one of three areas: The impacts of transportation investments on equity […]
Two CIVL Engineers inducted Fellows of the Canadian Academy of Engineering
Two Civil Engineering professors Tarek Sayed and Dharma Wijewickreme have been inducted Fellows of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE) in recognition of their distinguished achievements and career-long service to the engineering profession. The induction ceremony took place on June 20, 2013 in Montreal in conjunction with the Academy’s 2013 Annual General Meeting and Symposium. […]
EERF Researchers win Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Engineering Excellence
Researchers at UBC’s Earthquake Engineering Research Facility, including Dr. Carlos Ventura, Dr. William Finn and Dr. Armin Bebamzadeh, were part of a group of researchers from industry and academia who received the 2013 Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Engineering Excellence for their work in developing the “Seismic Retrofit Guidelines for the Performance-based Seismic Risk Assessment and […]
2013 NSERC Discovery Grant Accelerator Supplements Award Recipients
The 2013 NSERC Discovery Grant Accelerator Supplement Awards have been awarded to three of our colleagues this year: Nemy Banthia, Ken Elwood and Bernard Laval. Congratulations to Nemy, Ken and Bernard for their success in securing this supplemental grant to their NSERC DG. This year only 12 DAS have been awarded nationally and having 25% of […]
UBC Civil Engineering Professors Honoured by the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering
Five UBC Civil Engineering professors and one graduate student were honoured by the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) during its annual conference in Montreal from May 29-June 1, 2013. Dharma Wijewickreme was doubly honoured at the conference: he received the CSCE’s Horst Leipholz Medal for his outstanding contributions to engineering mechanics research and practice in […]
The International CONCUR team has descended on Kilpisjärvi!
Dr. Bernard Laval’s International CONCUR team have finally landed in Kilpisjärvi Northern Finland to study the transition from ice cover to summer in a high latitude lake (70ºN). The team is hard at work in the field taking measurements of the temperature, conductivity, pressure, pH, turbidity, redox, PAR and current from the surface of the […]
Civil Engineering Professor receives UBC’s highest Teaching Honour
Professor Perry Adebar received a UBC Killam Teaching Prize during the May 28, 2013 convocation ceremonies where the following award citation was read, detailing Adebar’s unique contributions to teaching at UBC: “A well-known structural engineer in the British Columbia construction industry, Dr. Adebar is an exceptional teacher, able to convey highly complex mathematical and solid […]
PCWM Students at Science Rendezvous, 2013
On May 11th, check out Science Rendezvous at UBC, a family-friendly event where people and science meet! PCWM graduate students will be promoting the science of drinking water. Get hands-on experience experimenting with water treatment processes yourself; take the bottled vs tap taste challenge; pledge to reduce your water use (and enter to win awesome […]
CIVL grad student wins prestigious Cambridge Fellowship
UBC Civil Engineering PhD candidate Anirban Guha 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 in Cambridge for two to three months, covering his travel and subsistence expenses up to £3,600 (approximately $5600 […]
Civil Professor Dr. Jonathan Fannin honoured by the Engineering Institute of Canada
UBC Civil Engineering professor Jonathan Fannin will be inducted as Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC) for his exceptional contributions to engineering. Fannin has compiled a body of experimental findings and related field observations that have contributed significantly to the state-of-the-art in geotechnical engineering as it relates to landslide risk management, designing with geosynthetics and seepage-induced […]
A Green and Sustainable Solution to Global Phosphorus Depletion
Closing the loop through nutrient recovery from different waste streams is now evolving as a necessary, sustainable development objective, driven by the urgent need to reduce consumption of vital natural resources (e.g. phosphate rock), reduce gas emissions and conserve energy. A better understanding of the chemistry, engineering and overall process integration is developing quickly and […]
Civil Engineering Professor appointed for a 2-Year Term as the VP of Finance for the Canadian Geotechnical Society
Congratulations to Professor Dharma Wijewickreme who is appointed for a two year term as the Vice-President Finance of the Canadian Geotechnical Society effective January 1st, 2013. The announcement was made during the 65th Canadian Geotechnical Conference held in Winnipeg on October 1-3, 2012. The Canadian Geotechnical Society is the premier organization for geotechnical engineers and geoscientists in Canada and […]
UBC Civil Engineering professor receives international transportation educator award
Vancouver, Canada—August 24, 2011—UBC Civil Engineering Professor Tarek Sayed received the 2011 Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Wilbur S. Smith Distinguished Transportation Educator Award for his significant contribution to the transportation profession by relating academic studies to the actual practice of transportation. The award was presented August 15th, 2011 at the institute’s annual meeting in […]
Dr Michael Isaacson PEng: Seeking New Approaches for Meaningful Engagement
Photo credit: Andrea Sunderland Photograph With an academic’s keen insight, Dr Michael Isaacson PEng seeks to bring creative solutions and innovative approaches to the Council table. “I like to focus on how to make things happen, and to do so in the most efficient and effective way,” he says. A faculty member at the University […]
UBC Civil Engineering Professor Awarded the 2012 Norman Medal of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
UBC Civil Engineering Assistant Professor Mahdi Taiebat, along with his co-authors, received the 2012 Norman Medal of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) during the ASCE annual conference held in Montreal, Canada, in October 2012. The prestigious award recognizes a paper that “makes a definitive contribution to engineering science”. This year, ASCE chose the […]
Top Canadian, Indian institutions form $30M partnership to improve water and infrastructure safety, eradicate diseases
Scientists from the University of British Columbia, University of Alberta, University of Toronto and 11 leading institutions in India are joining forces to tackle urgent issues in both countries with a $30-million partnership. Supported by the Canadian government and state and industry partners in India, the India-Canada Centre for Innovative Multidisciplinary Partnerships to Accelerate Community […]
UBC Civil Professor Wins National Award of Excellence in Geotechnical Engineering
UBC Civil Engineering Professor Jonathan Fannin received the 2012 Geosynthetics Division Award from the Canadian Geotechnical Society (CGS) in recognition of his outstanding technical contribution to the application of geosynthetics in civil, geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering in Canada and internationally. From left: Fannin with Bryan Watts, CGS President (photo courtesy of the CGS). Fannin is an expert […]
UBC Engineer recognized for Teaching Excellence
he Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of B.C. (APEGBC) has awarded UBC Civil Engineering professor Robert Millar with its Award for Teaching Excellence in Engineering and Geoscience Education—the highest teaching award for engineering educators in British Columbia.From left: APEGBC President Jeff Holm and Millar.Andrea Sunderland Photograph Award Citation: Dr. Millar consistently excels at the art of […]
Design & Construction Coordination with Building Information Modelling
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 20121:30pm – 2:30pmKAISER 2020/2030 “Design & Construction Coordination with Building Information Modelling”By Dr. Sheryl Staub-FrenchAssociate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering Abstract The construction industry faces significant challenges, including increased design complexity, a fragmented supply chain, compressed project timelines, tightening budgets, and stagnant productivity. Building Information Modeling (BIM) holds great promise for addressing […]
UBC Civil Engineering Lecture Series
Lifting the Veil on Exposed StructureBy Paul Fast, P. Eng., Struc. Eng., FIStructEManaging Partner of the structural engineering firm, Fast + Epp Monday, October 15, 6:30pm to 8:30pmHR MacMillan Space Centre1100 Chestnut Street in Vancouver Modern timber engineering has come a long way from the quaint log cabin of old, giving rise to a whole […]