School of Engineering
Showing 251-300 of 424 Results
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Eduardo Miranda
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsRegional seismic risk assessment, ground motion directionality
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William Mitch
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
BioBill Mitch received a B.A. in Anthropology (Archaeology) from Harvard University in 1993. During his studies, he excavated at Mayan sites in Belize and surveyed sites dating from 2,000 B.C. in Louisiana. He switched fields by receiving a M.S. degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. He worked for 3 years in environmental consulting, receiving his P.E. license in Civil Engineering in California. Returning to UC Berkeley in 2000, he received his PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering in 2003. He moved to Yale as an assistant professor after graduation. His dissertation received the AEESP Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award in 2004. At Yale, he serves as the faculty advisor for the Yale Student Chapter of Engineers without Borders. In 2007, he won a NSF CAREER Award. He moved to Stanford University as an associate professor in 2013.
Employing a fundamental understanding of organic chemical reaction pathways, his research explores links between public health, engineering and sustainability. Topics of current interest include:
Public Health and Emerging Carcinogens: Recent changes to the disinfection processes fundamental to drinking and recreational water safety are creating a host of highly toxic byproducts linked to bladder cancer. We seek to understand how these compounds form so we can adjust the disinfection process to prevent their formation.
Global Warming and Oceanography: Oceanic dissolved organic matter is an important global carbon component, and has important impacts on the net flux of CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere. We seek to understand some of the important abiotic chemical reaction pathways responsible for carbon turnover.
Sustainability and Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs): While PCBs have been banned in the US, we continue to produce a host of structurally similar chemicals. We seem to understand important chemical pathways responsible for POP destruction in the environment, so we can design less persistent and problematic chemicals in the future.
Engineering for Sustainable Wastewater Recycling: The shortage of clean water represents a critical challenge for the next century, and has necessitated the recycling of wastewater. We seek to understand ways of engineer this process in ways to minimize harmful byproduct formation.
Carbon Sequestration: We are evaluating the formation of nitrosamine and nitraminecarcinogens from amine-based carbon capture, as well as techniques to destroy any of these byproducts that form. -
Aadhityaa Mohanavelu
Ph.D. Student in Civil and Environmental Engineering, admitted Autumn 2023
BioAadhityaa Mohanavelu is a PhD student at Osman Lab, currently working on quantifying global water challenges and developing equitable water infrastructure systems. His research uses tools and techniques from diverse disciplines, including data-driven computational modeling, artificial intelligence, qualitative methodology, and sensor-based experiments, to better comprehend water problems and develop innovative solutions. He has a strong background in modeling hydro-climatic systems, studying resilient water infrastructures, and quantifying environmental contamination hazards. He loves music and enjoys traveling!
Aadhityaa is a holder of the 2023 Quad Fellowship (inaugural cohort). -
Stephen Monismith
Obayashi Professor in the School of Engineering and Professor of Oceans
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsHydrodynamics of lakes, estuaries, coral reefs, kelp forests and the coastal ocean
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Jonathan Lee Montoya
Affiliate, Civil and Environmental Engineering
BioJonathan Lee Montoya studies equitable pathways in STEM disciplines at the intersection of Engineering and Computer Science Education. Jonathan is a practitioner at heart. He holds secondary teaching credentials in Biological Sciences, Geosciences, and Career Technical Education. He has also taught Virtual Design and Construction. Jonathan received his Ph.D. and M.A. in Education from the University of California, Irvine, where he was an NSF Ridge to Reef Scholar and Eugene Cota-Robles Scholar. He also holds an M.A. in STEEM education from Santa Clara University, where he was an NSF Robert Noyce Teacher Scholar. Jonathan received his B.S. in Environmental Sciences with an emphasis in Ethics at Cal Poly Humboldt. While at Humboldt, he also studied Botany and Environmental Education in Argentina and Chile.
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Joseph Fitzpatrick Moore, P.E.
Adjunct Lecturer, Civil and Environmental Engineering
BioMember, State Bar of California; Registered California Professional Civil Engineer; Fellow, American College of Construction Lawyers; Past Chair, International Bar Associaton, International Construction Projects Commitee; Board Member, International Constructon Law Alliance. Partner, Hanson Bridgett, LLP. Joseph is a dual qualified lawyer and civil engineer. His law practice focuses on complex domestic and international construction projects and disputes.
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Dinesh D Moorjani
Student, Program-Jain, R.
BioDinesh Moorjani is a serial tech founder & CEO, venture capital investor, and professor. He is the founder and Managing Partner of Time Zero Capital, a technology venture capital firm investing in responsible innovation.
Dinesh founded Hatch Labs Inc. where he served as Chairman & CEO and cofounded Tinder (NASDAQ: MTCH) in 2012. Dinesh built several technology companies including Saffronart, a global eCommerce marketplace for Indian fine art and collectibles backed by Sequoia Capital, where he continues to serve on the board. Dinesh also cofounded Kleverbeast—a no-code SaaS application development platform and Monet Analytics—an AI platform that decodes human emotion.
Dinesh served in numerous executive leadership roles at multinational corporations, including as Managing Director at Comcast Ventures, Sr. Vice President and Group Head of Mobility at IAC/InterActive Corp, and in various leadership roles at Samsung Electronics in the US and Asia. He built his early career in the Global Energy Practice at AD Little, Goldman Sachs, and as an early employee at Mainspring (IPO 2000, acquired by IBM 2001). Dinesh served as an independent board director at Alight (NYSE: ALIT) and on the advisory boards of Fortune 500 companies including American Express, Assurant, and Cox Automotive. He served on the board of directors of Zoox (acquired by Amazon), a leader in autonomous vehicles. Dinesh served as an advisor to Warburg Pincus, the global private equity firm, where he was previously an EIR, co-investing alongside the firm and serving in a governance capacity on portfolio company boards.
Dinesh is an adjunct professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, and regularly guest lectures at Harvard, Stanford, and MIT. Dinesh also serves on the Harvard Business School California Research Center Advisory Board. He supports disenfranchised youth and education through his non-profit work as a board director at the United Friends of the Children and the Organization for Social Media Safety. Dinesh continues to serve as a Board Trustee at the University of California, Merced. Dinesh earned his BS in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University and MBA from Harvard. Dinesh is a PhD Candidate in the Engineering Department at Stanford University. -
Kopal Nihar
Postdoctoral Scholar, Civil and Environmental Engineering
BioI am a PhD candidate advised by Dr Rishee Jain and working at Urban Informatics Lab. My research interest lies in understanding data-driven human-building interactions and impact of indoor air quality on occupant behaviour, especially for the purpose of natural ventilation.
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Hae Young Noh
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
BioHae Young Noh is a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Her research introduced the new concept of “structures as sensors” to enable physical structures (e.g., buildings and vehicle frames) to be user- and environment-aware. In particular, these structures indirectly sense humans and surrounding environments through their structural responses (i.e., vibrations) by inferring the desired information (e.g., human behaviors, environmental conditions, heating and cooling system performance), instead of directly measuring the sensing targets with additional dedicated sensors (e.g., cameras, motion sensors). This concept brought a paradigm shift in how we view these structures and how the structures interact with us.
Traditionally, structures that we inhabit (such as buildings or vehicles) are considered as passive and unchanging objects that we need to monitor and control, utilizing a dense set of sensors to collect information. This has often been complicated by “noise” caused by the occupants and environments. For example, building vibrations induced by indoor and outdoor environmental and operational conditions (e.g., people walking around, traffic outside, heating system running, etc.), have been often seen as noise that needs to be removed in traditional building science and structural engineering; however, they are a rich source of information about structure, users, environment, and resources. Similarly, in vehicle engineering, researchers and engineers have been investigating control and dynamics to reduce vehicle vibration for safety and comfort. However, vibrations measured inside vehicles contain information about transportation infrastructure, vehicle itself, and driver.
Noh's work utilizes this “noise” to empower the structures with the ability to perceive and understand the information about users and surroundings using their own responses, and actively adopt and/or interact to enhance their sustainability and the occupants’ quality of life. Since she utilizes the structure itself as a sensing medium, information collection involves a simpler set of hardware that can be easily maintained throughout the structural lifetime. However, the analysis of data to separate the desired information becomes more challenging. This challenge is addressed through high-rate dynamic sensing and multi-source inferencing. Ultimately, her work aims to allow structural systems to become general sensing platforms that are easier and more practical to deploy and maintain in a long-term.
At Stanford University, Noh received her PhD and MS degrees in the CEE department and her second MS degree in Electrical Engineering. Noh earned her BS in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University. -
Leonard Ortolano
UPS Foundation Professor of Civil Engineering in Urban and Regional Planning, Emeritus
BioOrtolano is concerned with environmental and water resources policy and planning. His research stresses environmental policy implementation in developing countries and the role of non-governmental organizations in environmental management. His recent interests center on corporate environmental management.
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Khalid Osman
Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Center Fellow, by courtesy, at the Woods Institute for the Environment
BioKhalid Osman joined the department as an Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering in autumn of 2022. His research spans the use of mixed quantitative-qualitative methods to assess public perceptions of water infrastructure, water conservation efforts, and the management of existing infrastructure systems to meet the needs of those being served by the systems. He currently is focused on the operationalization of equity in water sector infrastructure, conceptualizing equity in decentralized water and sanitation systems, water affordability, and stakeholder-community engagement in sustainable civil infrastructure systems for achieving environmental justice.
Khalid was the holder of a Bill and Melinda Gates Millennium Scholars Graduate Fellowship and also a Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship. -
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. -
Mr Tamin Pechet
Adjunct Lecturer, Program-Mauter, M.
BioTamin Pechet is an entrepreneur and investor who has founded a series of purpose-driven enterprises in natural resources and technology. Mr. Pechet is the founder and CEO of Upwell Water, a global, tech-enabled water resource and infrastructure company. He also founded and serves on the boards of Above Data, a venture-backed AI company, Kilonova Capital, an investment firm supporting late stage tech companies, and Hawk Hill Group, a renewable energy finance platform, in addition to serving on multiple venture capital-backed company boards. Mr. Pechet also founded and serves as Chairman of Imagine H2O, the largest global innovation accelerator for the water industry. Mr. Pechet previously worked for Goldman Sachs Special Situations Investing Group. Mr. Pechet is a frequent speaker on business and innovation in water, natural resources, and technology, and co-authored the book Water Tech: A Guide to Investment, Innovation, and Business Opportunities in the Water Sector. He holds an AB and an MBA from Harvard University, and serves as an Adjunct Lecturer at Stanford University.
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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 numerical modeling.
