Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Magazine, September 2020

September 2020

Message from the chair We’ve overcome challenges in a difficult year, supporting our students in their remote delivery instruction and seeing many to graduation, including our first construction engineering graduates. Searching for coronavirus WSU researchers have begun studying how the coronavirus persists in the environment—information that could help improve understanding of its pathogenicity.

First construction engineering graduates WSU’s first construction engineering graduates received their diplomas this spring. All of them had jobs. Changes to drylands with future climate change A WSU-led study in Nature Comms found that drylands around the world will expand because of future climate change, but their average productivity will likely be reduced.

Breathing easier during wildfire season Researchers from WSU’s Laboratory for Atmospheric Research are part of an NIH-funded study that will use a phone app to help people with asthma during wildfire season. Damage detective Ayumi Manawadu’s vision for her future changed forever when her father’s life was spared by the walls of the Galle Fort during the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka. She has made it her life’s work to study civil engineering and resilient structures.

PLUS: USDA grant: Researchers find antibiotic-resistant GMO genes in sludge In Nature Comms: Climate change forces farmers to pick low yields or risk instability Helping fish thrive in Washington Sustaining roads with grape waste Invisible plastics in water Measuring the unknown: How groundwater levels have been changing in the Columbia Basin

Awards and Honors Xianming Shi, ASCE Fellow Patrick Robichaud, Truman Scholarship Finalist Sarah Murphy, DOE Graduate Fellowship Sen Du, Outstanding Graduate Student

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