The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering offers Master of Science (M.S., thesis and non-thesis options), and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees. Areas of study and concentrations include Environmental Engineering, Geotechnical Engineering, Structural Engineering and Mechanics, Water Resources Engineering, and Transportation Engineering at the masters and doctoral levels. In addition, the Department offers an accelerated Master of Engineering (M.E.) degree program (4 + 1, non-thesis) with a concentration in Water and Environment.  Areas of study/concentration within Civil and Environmental engineering are aligned with University of Maine’s Signature Research Areas (Marine Sciences, Climate Change, Advanced Materials in Infrastructure and Energy, Sustainability Solutions and Technologies).

 

Environmental and Water Resources Engineering

The Environmental and Water Resources Engineering areas focus on qualitative and quantitative aspects of marine and inland surface waters, groundwater and wetland environments within the broad context of environmental sustainability. The programs allow for study in environmental engineering including biological and chemical aspects of water quality, solid waste management, and remediation; water resources engineering including surface and groundwater hydrology, hydroclimatology, and adaptive environmental management; and coastal engineering including river and estuarine mixing and transport processes, and the hydrodynamic and morphodynamic impact of waves, tides and storm surge on estuaries and coasts. Interdisciplinary approaches incorporating environmental and water resources engineering course work and content, and intersecting with other departments’ related programs are encouraged.

The University of Maine is fortunate to be located in a region having an extensive and diverse system of lakes, streams, and rivers, providing one of the finest outdoor laboratories in the world for research on water quality and quantity. The Environmental Chemistry, Environmental Microbiology and Water Resources Laboratories are equipped with essential sample preparation, analytical chemistry, anaerobic cultivation, molecular biology and computing equipment. State of the art low detection level analytical capabilities, microscopy and sequencing facilities are also available on campus.

A program of study can be planned in one of the following areas:

Environmental engineering: Physical, chemical and biological processes affecting water quality; freshwater and marine pollution control; water and wastewater treatment; environmental nanotechnology; hazardous wastes; solid waste management; pollutant, element and nutrient cycling.

Water resources engineering: Surface and groundwater hydrology, hydroclimatology, hydrologic response to climate change and adaptive environmental management and policy.

Coastal engineering:  River plume, estuarine mixing and transport processes; wave, tidal, storm, and sediment dynamics; marine renewable energy; aquaculture farms as nature-based infrastructure.

 

Geotechnical Engineering

The geotechnical engineering graduate program provides opportunities for specialized training and research in soil mechanics, unsaturated/gassy soil mechanics,, slope stability, soil-structure interaction, design of foundations and earth retention structures, advanced numerical modeling of geosystems, and sediment transport and soil erosion. Students in the program may choose either a thesis option, conducting fundamental research or research applied to practical engineering problems, or a professional practice option without a thesis.

Graduate courses are offered in advanced soil mechanics, t, rock mechanics, experimental soil mechanics, slope stability, shallow and deep foundations, earth retaining structures,ground improvement techniques, soil erosion, and geosystems modeling. Additionally, students have the opportunity to incorporate coursework across disciplines, such as structural and environmental engineering courses offered by the department, Earth Sciences, and other disciplines.

Research opportunities are available to study: behavior of soft and stiff clays; investigation of natural hazards in land, coastal, and near-shore environments related to formation, failure, improvement, prevention, and engineering; soil structure interaction using full scale installations and/or modeling of scaled systems, specifically for offshore foundations and piled systems; onshore and offshore site characterization employing in situ, geophysical, and laboratory methods; dynamic behavior of soils during impact and advanced modeling of geosystems using the finite element method and the material point method. thermal behavior of soils related to energy transfer, permafrost vulnerability and cold regions engineering; and application of reliability in geotechnical engineering.

 

Structural Engineering and Mechanics

The program offers graduate courses and opportunities for advanced research in several areas of structural mechanics and design. These include the development of innovative materials and structural systems to solve problems in traditional civil infrastructure, marine facilities, building structural systems, and non-traditional applications. Particular areas of strength are composite materials, including wood-based, polymer matrix, and cement-based systems, as well as innovative computational modeling approaches.

Research opportunities are available in structural systems for offshore wind power, bio-based materials and renewable systems, characterization and processing techniques for composite materials, the use of composite materials in civil infrastructure, structural health monitoring, experimental micromechanics, bridge engineering, and timber engineering. Projects are often inter-disciplinary, and closely integrate experimental and analytical/computational research. Many student projects are conducted in the Advanced Structures and Composites Center (composites.umaine.edu), a state-of-the-art facility for material processing and fabrication, small scale testing and characterization, and large scale structural testing.

Required and elective graduate courses and seminars are offered in the Civil and Mechanical Engineering departments that cover the areas of structural design, structural mechanics, structural dynamics, numerical methods, composite materials, bridge engineering, fracture mechanics, experimental mechanics, and related topics. The program is research oriented and sufficiently flexible to permit students to develop their interests and individual objectives.

 

Transportation Engineering

The Transportation engineering graduate program provides opportunities for specialized training and research in Transportation Engineering, highway safety and operations, and Transportation systems and planning.  Graduate courses are offered in Engineering Systems and Optimization, Advanced Transportation Planning, Transportation Operations and Highway Safety.  Additionally, students have the opportunity to incorporate coursework across disciplines, such as Geographic information system (GIS), Statistics, Econometrics and Machine Learning.

Research opportunities are available to study include but not limited to traffic safety and operations, analysis of crash data. transportation data and data analytics, transportation planning and connected and automated vehicles.

 

General Information

Applicants for the M.S. and M.E. degree programs should normally have a B.S. degree in Civil Engineering from an accredited institution. Applicants who do not meet this requirement may find it necessary to take certain courses without receiving graduate credit. A grade point average of at least 3.0 is usually required for admittance. Candidates with a grade point average less than 3.0 can be accepted based on sufficient evidence of satisfactory performance.

Candidates for the M.S. (thesis option) degree are required to take 24 credit hours of coursework, 12 of which must be 500-level and higher. A thesis is required for which at least six credit hours can be awarded. Candidates for the M.S. (non-thesis option) degree are required to take 30 credit hours of coursework, 12 of which must be 500-level and higher.

The M.E. degree is offered only with a concentration in Water and Environment. Candidates for the M.E. degree are required to take 30 credit hours of approved coursework, 12 of which must be 500-level and higher. Up to nine credits of approved senior-level undergraduate engineering or science courses counted toward the B.S. degree requirements may also be counted toward the 30-credit M.E. degree requirement for students who have been formally admitted to and successfully complete the M.E. degree. Three hours of M.E. or M.S. (non-thesis) course work can be replaced by a project with a written technical report. An M.S. thesis student is typically not allowed to change to the M.E. program. A student changing programs within the Department must have the approval of all members of the student’s advisory committee and the Graduate Coordinator.

The Ph.D. degree is granted in recognition of high scholastic attainment in some area of civil engineering in concert with a demonstrated ability for independent research. The preparation and defense of a thesis embodying the results of an original investigation in a specialized area of civil engineering are essential features of the program. The program for the Ph.D. carries a minimum residency requirement of two academic years and a course credit requirement of 42 credit hours, at least 12 of which must be 500-level and higher, or the equivalent, beyond the B.S. degree. Transfer credit of up to 24 credit hours and one academic year of residency may be accepted. In view of the wide variety of specialized areas embodied in Civil and Environmental Engineering, the student’s program of study will be established in consultation with the graduate committee. Before admission to candidacy for the Ph.D., a student must successfully complete a qualifying examination designed to test the student’s area of expertise. The qualifying examination will normally be taken as soon as possible after the student has completed the graduate school requirement of one and one-half years of study beyond the bachelor’s degree. No foreign language requirement is included in the program.

All students matriculating into M.S (thesis option) or Ph.D. programs must pass one credit of Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training prior to completing the degree, preferably prior to commencing the research. At the advisory committee’s or Graduate Coordinator’s discretion, this credit may be substituted for one of the 6 required thesis/dissertation credits (CIE 699).

 

The following table summarizes credit requirements:

Degree program	Total credits	Course credits (min.)*	Thesis credits (min.)
M.S. (thesis)	30	24	5 Thesis + 1 RCR
M.S. (non-thesis)	30	30	0
M.E. (Water and Environment)	30	30, incl. 9 carried over from the B.S. degree: contingent upon approval	0
Ph.D.	48	42	5 Thesis + 1 RCR

* At least 12 credits must be 500-level and higher

 

Financial assistance is available for graduate students from several sources, including teaching and research assistantships.  Additional information regarding the graduate program is available at: https://civil.umaine.edu/graduate-students/
 

Graduate Faculty

Onur G. Apul, Ph.D., P.E. (Clemson University, 2014) Assistant Professor. Environmental engineering; water treatment, environmental nanotechnology, adsorption of synthetic organic compounds by carbon adsorbents, environmental organic chemistry, aquatic chemistry.

Habib J. Dagher, Ph.D., P.E. (University of Wisconsin, 1985), Professor. Probabilistic mechanics, timber structures, advanced wood composites, concrete structures, bridges.

Bill Davids, Ph.D., P.E. (University of Washington, 1998), Bodwell University Distinguished Professor. Structural engineering and computational mechanics; numerical modeling and finite element analysis; inflatable structures; bridge engineering; application of composites in civil infrastructure.

Aaron Gallant, Ph.D., P.E. (Northwestern University, 2014), Assistant Professor. Geotechnical engineering; ground improvement, soil-structure interaction, fundamental behavior of saturated and unsaturated/gassy soils, full-scale instrumentation & modeling.

Kimberly Huguenard, Ph.D. (University of Florida, 2013), Associate Professor. Coastal engineering, coastal physical oceanography, estuarine physics and aquaculture with emphasis on turbulent processes.

Shaleen Jain, Ph.D., P.E. (Utah State, 2001), Professor and Chair. Hydrology and water resources engineering, hydroclimatology, environmental sustainability, adaptive management.

Eric N. Landis, Ph.D., P.E. (Northwestern University, 1993), Frank M. Taylor Professor. Experimental mechanics, nondestructive evaluation, fracture, microstructure-property relationships for construction materials.

Roberto Lopez-Anido, Ph.D., P.E. (West Virginia University, 1995), Malcolm G. Long Professor. Mechanics of polymer matrix composites for infrastructure; modeling, design and experimental characterization of advanced composite systems; fatigue and durability of composite materials for construction; engineered wood composites; methods of structural analysis.

Jean MacRae, Ph.D. (University of British Columbia, 1997), Associate Professor. Biological treatment of wastes, resource recovery, food waste management, bioremediation, nutrient cycling, environmental microbiology.

Edwin Nagy, Ph.D., P.E., S.E. (University of Maine, 2010), Lecturer. Structural engineering, structural steel design, wood structures.

Lauren Ross, Ph.D. (University of Florida, 2014), Assistant Professor. Estuarine, fjord and coastal hydrodynamic processes, marine renewable energy, analytical and numerical modeling of flow and sediments in semi-enclosed basins, physics of internal waves and tides.

Ali Shirazi, Ph.D. (Texas A&M University, 2018) Assistant Professor. Transportation engineering, transportation safety, transportation data and data analytics, fundamental work in traffic safety, transportation systems.

Luis E. Zambrano-Cruzatty, Ph.D. (Virginia Tech, 2021), Assistant Professor. Geotechnical engineering; soil-structure interaction, constitutive modeling of soils, advanced modeling of geosystems, material point method, riverine and coastal erosion.