School of Engineering
Showing 281-300 of 423 Results
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Nicholas Ouellette
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe Environmental Complexity Lab studies self-organization in a variety of complex systems, ranging from turbulent fluid flows to granular materials to collective motion in animal groups. In all cases, we aim to characterize the macroscopic behavior, understand its origin in the microscopic dynamics, and ultimately harness it for engineering applications. Most of our projects are experimental, though we also use numerical simulation and mathematical modeling when appropriate. We specialize in high-speed, detailed imaging and statistical analysis.
Our current research includes studies of turbulence in two and three dimensions, with a focus on coherent structures and the geometry of turbulence; the transport of inertial, anisotropic, and active particles in turbulence; the erosion of granular beds by fluid flows and subsequent sediment transport; quantitative measurements of collective behavior in insect swarms and bird flocks; the stability of ocean ecosystems; neural signal processing; and uncovering the natural, self-organized spatiotemporal scales in urban systems. -
Yuandong PAN
Postdoctoral Scholar, Civil and Environmental Engineering
BioYuandong Pan is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the School of Engineering at Stanford University. His research focuses on developing digital and smart approaches to support more sustainable buildings, infrastructure, and cities. Before joining Stanford, he was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Future Road Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge. His work aims to improve how the built environment is designed, managed, and maintained, contributing to smarter, more resilient, and more sustainable urban systems.
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Forest Olaf Peterson, Ph.D.
Research Affiliate, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Staff, Civil and Environmental EngineeringBioAs a staff research affiliate, I bring both blue-collar and white-collar perspectives to my role as a scholar of infrastructure.
For seven years, I was a concrete laborer on large infrastructure projects with the Laborers’ International Union of North America. Those years taught me social and environmental dimensions from the ground up.
My fellow laborers wanted to work safely. However, though skilled, we often did not have the information to succeed without unnecessary hardship, for example, on a large highway project we could have worked on another task while a broken piece of equipment was repaired, however, neither the crew nor our supervisors had access to a task schedule to see that (there was a schedule, it was just permission that was missing -- though even with permission the schedule was your typical P6 Gantt which even at best wouldn't have been informative). As a result, our supervisors forced us to continue work loading miles of heavy concrete barriers with a damaged loader. Our choices were to work, quit, or be fired; we were not the operator of the loader, we were the ground crew [2023 Edit: we should have called our Union]. Eventually, a two-ton barrier dropped and hit something that flipped it over where it came to rest just inches above my chest. My fellow workers celebrated my life. One cried in memory of a recent work fatality. We were told to get back to work.
The futility of the situation has left a lasting impression.
www.researchgate.net/profile/Forest-Peterson
www.linkedin.com/in/forest-peterson -
Ashton Pihl
Ph.D. Student in Civil and Environmental Engineering, admitted Summer 2025
BioI am a first-year PhD Student in the Baker Coastal Lab researching surf-zone circulation generated by short-crested breaking waves. I am interested in studying the along-crest variability in energy dissipation, the unsteady structure associated with injected vertical and horizontal vorticity, and the evolution of vertical vorticity structures linked to the shoreward propagation of bores using laboratory experimental methods and theoretical analysis.
