Dear alumni, students, faculty and friends,
The Engineering School of Sustainable Infrastructure & Environment has enjoyed a busy fall fueled by faculty accolades, groundbreaking research, student success, substantial grants and, of course, a winning concrete canoe named Reptilia.
In this newsletter, we will highlight much of that momentum and showcase the people and projects that make the University of Florida a leader in civil and environmental engineering. What we do makes a difference.
Take, for example, the story about ESSIE’s Xilei Zhao, Ph.D., who has joined researchers from two other universities to improve wildfire evacuations through AI-based models.
On the coastal front, we feature two research projects designed to protect our shores. One follows Alberto Canestrelli, Ph.D., and his team’s efforts to protect sensitive salt marshes with the help of ribbed mussels. Natural solutions. There’s also a fascinating story about Brian Phillips, Ph.D., and his collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to investigate 2017’s Hurricane Maria, which severely impacted Puerto Rico.
Both projects are designed to strengthen coastal resilience, with Phillips and NIST making full use of lasers in UF’s wind tunnel in the Powell Family Structure and Materials Laboratory on UF’s East Campus.
In this newsletter, we congratulate Professor Jing “Eric” Du, Ph.D., who was awarded the prestigious Steve and Wendy Blum Endowed Professorship for Industrialized Construction Engineering. The appointment recognizes Du’s contributions in advancing industrialized construction, which integrates robotics, automation and artificial intelligence with next-generation construction methods.
Other faculty members are making news, too. The American Society of Civil Engineers in August inducted four UF engineering faculty members as 2025 ASCE Fellows.
In this issue we honor the late Neil Shopke, a 1962 UF engineering graduate and former UF football player who, with little fanfare or credit, designed the moon buggy’s communications antenna used on lunar missions in the early 1970s. Shopke will be missed.
As for our amazing students, we celebrate two more Gator champions. Less than a month after our Eckhoff Steel Bridge Team made history by capturing its fifth consecutive national title, UF’s Concrete Canoe team paddled its way to its fifth national title (four in the last six years). Once again, the Gators are the ones to beat.
ESSIE remains on the move and on top of its game.
I wish you well as the semester closes, and I hope you a happy, healthy holiday season.
Kurtis Gurley
Interim Director – Engineering School of Sustainable Infrastructure & Environment