Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
Explore focus areas of CEE research, including energy and environment, smart and resilient infrastructure, and global and sustainable development.
Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
SMU Lyle's Civil and Environmental Engineering Department performs leading-edge research to expand knowledge and develop new designs and methods to sustain people and nature in natural and built environments. Our research focal areas span across transportation engineering and planning, structural analysis and design, earthquake engineering, treatment and supply of drinking water, biogeochemical redox processes, mathematical modeling of fate and transport processes in the subsurface, modeling microbial kinetics, quantitative geochemistry, pollution prevention and industrial waste treatment.
Undergraduate and graduate students are integral to the department's research culture. Learn more about undergraduate research opportunities.
Energy and Environment
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Areas of research focus include sustainable water systems, renewable energy systems, and the natural environment's role in human health.
We apply leading-edge field observation methods, lab experiments, and data science/ computational modeling approaches in environmental fluid mechanics to inspect the movement of sediment and water and advance healthy ecosystems. We study the sources, fate, and transport of pathogens disseminated through the environment by water, on surfaces, and through air.
We create methods and models to better understand complex interactions between urban systems and utilize new information systems to improve our understanding of human behavior and associated demand for infrastructure.
Global and Sustainable Development
We conduct research locally and globally, providing students with opportunities to get involved within their own communities, as well as exploring new ones.
Using the Dallas-Fort Worth area as our site lab encourages countless research projects inside and outside the classroom.
With students participating from around the world, and hosting a summer course/internship opportunity in Rwanda, our programs open doors to expand our research internationally and partner with organizations and educational institutions overseas.
Smart and Resilient Infrastructure
Infrastructure must be durable, efficient, adaptable to changing conditions, and capable of withstanding various challenges.
Our areas of research include:
- Developing advanced materials with enhanced durability, sustainability and resilience to extreme conditions
- Using advanced sensors and data analytics to monitor the condition of infrastructure in real-time
- Developing methods to design infrastructure that can withstand natural disasters, climate change and other disruptions