Page 8 - CEGE Magazine - Fall 2016

CEGENEWS CONT ...
RENA WEIS, an environmental engi- neering student, traveled to Ashe- ville, North Carolina, to present at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research. “The experience was every- thing I hoped it would be. I presented to students and faculty from across the country. It was an honor to be one of the nine students representing UMN. I
The University of Minnesota CONCRETE CANOE TEAM nished
in fourth place overall at the Midwest Regional Concrete Canoe competition in Ames, Iowa, in April. The team took
hope that CEGE students can continue to represent the University at the con- ference in the future.”
third place in the design paper and nal product/aesthetic portions of the com- petition and second in the presentation portion. Although their canoe broke in half during the second race of the day, they still managed to come away with a fourth place nish overall out of nine teams!
Two summer programs helped intro- duce young students to engineer-
ing. The National Summer Trans- portation Institute for students in grades 7-9, and the YMCA Girls, Inc., Eureka! Program for girls in grades 8-12. See what the future of engineer- ing looks like in our Facebook photos.
NEW FACULTY
ARDESHIR EBTEHAJ joined the CEGE faculty this fall. He is actually return- ing to UMN where he completed both an MS in Mathematics and a Ph.D.
in Civil Engineering (2013). He had completed a BS and an MS (in Civil Engineering) at the Iran University of Science and Technology before coming to graduate school in the United States.
As a student, Ebtehaj received the 2011 Interdisciplinary Doctoral Disser- tation Fellowship between the Depart- ment of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering and the Minnesota Center for Industrial Mathematics. He also served as a NASA Earth and Space Science Fellow. After gradu- ating, Ebtehaj worked two years as
a postdoctoral researcher at Georgia Institute of Technology, and in 2015 he joined the Department of Civil
and Environmental Engineering at Utah State University as an assistant professor.
His research experience includes hydrologic remote sensing and inverse problems in hydro-meteoro- logical systems, physical hydrology and land-atmosphere interactions, stochastic hydro-meteorology, and environmental risk and extreme value analysis. The overarching goal of his research is to increase our under- standing of the global water-energy cycle and of land-atmosphere inter- actions for improving water, food, and energy security.
“I am very excited to join such a fantastic community of scholars
and students at UMN—the place where I grew up scienti cally and the place that has shaped my research character. The Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering and, in particular, the Saint Anthony Falls Laboratory are among a few leading institutions in the world that are advancing the cutting edge of knowledge in water science and engi-
neering. The accomplished faculty— senior members and new hires—are going to launch a new era in knowl- edge production and educational training in the areas of water, environ- ment, and earth system sciences. I am humbled and honored to become a part of such an extraordinary team and to build on that tradition of great educational leadership.”
ARDESHIR EBTEHAJ
8 CEGE | CEGE.UMN.EDU