News

Mimicking the human body, specifically the actuators that control muscle movement, is of immense interest around the globe. In recent years, it has led to many innovations to improve robotics, prosthetic limbs and more, but creating these actuators typically involves complex processes, with expensive and hard-to-find materials.

Roger Bonnecaze, an internationally recognized expert in rheology and modeling and simulation for nanomanufacturing who has served as a faculty member at The University of Texas at Austin for nearly 30 years, has been named dean of the university’s Cockrell School of Engineering after a national search.

The University of Texas CAEE Student Team took home the first place trophy in the Texas Water Conference’s Student Design Competition this year. The team was composed of three environmental engineering grad students, Himanshu Sail, Shivani Katkar, and Jake Goodman, and mentored by Associate Professor Manish Kumar.

The 2022 CAEE Student and Faculty award winners have been announced! 

Dr. Ellen Rathje earns the ASCE’s 2022 Ralph B. Peck Award. The award is offered to those who have made significant contributions to the field of geotechnical engineering through research publications.

On Friday March 24, the Department hosted the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the newly renovated Thomas Taylor Design Studio!

Thanks to the generous contribution from our corporate sponsor, Thomas W. Taylor (UT'59), this state-of-the-art computing facility was formed in the Fall of 2021. The Design Studio consists of 38 high end CAD stations and multiple printers. This lab is only available to our brilliant Architectural Engineering students, allowing them to transform their imaginations into realities in a welcoming space. 

The following graduate students received a $250 Kolodzey Travel Grant for the Spring 2022 or Summer 2022 semester.

In celebration of International Women's Day, we would like to highlight Dr. Kasey Faust!

Dr. Faust has been with the department for 7 years, focusing on water infrastructure, and was recently promoted to Associate Professor. She was also awarded the 2022 Daniel W. Halpin Award for Scholarship in Construction, due to her “scholarly contributions made in the fields of community resiliency, human-infrastructure interactions, and socially sustainable water and sanitation infrastructure” by the ASCE’s Construction Institute.

Dr. Todd Helwig, professor and director of the Ferguson Structural Engineering Laboratory, has won the 2022 Richard S. Fountain Award for his innovation and leadership within the steel industry.

Dr. Mary Jo Kirisits, environmental engineering professor for CAEE, has won the 2022 Maxine and Jack Zarrow Family K-16 Teaching Innovation Award. The award is reserved for faculty members in the Cockrell School of Engineering who has most impacted students in K-12 and beyond, encouraging enrollment into STEM education and empirically improving the educational experience across all grade levels.