The Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering is pleased to invite applications for its 2008 undergraduate research program, through funding provided by Stanford’s Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education. The program is geared primarily to support full-time research appointments over the 2008 summer session; however, alternative proposals will be considered, subject to funding availability. The research awards will be based on a competitive application process. Interested students should submit their application and statement of interest, following the guidelines given below, before Feb 20, 2008 at 5:00 pm. Decisions regarding awards will be announced by March 1st via e-mail.
Research Theme
The theme of this year’s undergraduate research program is “Engineering for Sustainability”, which can be broadly interpreted within all program areas of civil & environmental engineering and related fields (e.g., architecture, earth sciences, etc.).
Financial Support
The 2008 summer program provides a full-time stipend of up to $5,200 ($520 per week) for the 10 week summer session, plus $500 towards research project expenses (supplies, travel, etc.).
Requirements and Restrictions
- Eligibility is limited to Stanford undergraduates who are working under the supervision of a faculty member affiliated with the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering. Co-terminal master's degree students are eligible only if the bachelor's degree will not be conferred before the end of the research appointment.
- Students receiving full summer stipends may not register for more than 5 credits of coursework, nor may they work for more than 10 hours per week in addition to their research appointment.
- Students are prohibited from receiving both credit and salary for any single research activity. This does not, however, preclude students from working on a research project during the summer and then expanding it into a senior thesis during the following academic year.
- Students are expected to participate in organized program activities throughout the summer (provided research is on campus), provide a final 3-page summary report on their project, complete an on-line evaluation, present the results of their research orally at the end of the summer at a CEE VPUE conference, and fill out a CEE evaluation form.
Application
Prior to submitting an application, students should identify and contact a CEE faculty member who is agreeable to supervise a summer research project. Students are encouraged to reference the CEE faculty web pages to learn more about the specific research interests and opportunities of the faculty. Faculty who have indicated an interest in advising summer projects are listed below. You may also apply for projects with faculty that are not listed here.
Applications should include the following:
[1] student applicant information (name, major, expected graduation date, local address, e-mail address),
[2] faculty research supervisor name and e-mail address,
[3] brief (500 word max.) statement of your research topic and plans,
[4] copy of your transcript (an unofficial transcript is fine),
[5] resume or summary of relevant experience. If your application is to request financial support for other than a full-time stipend during the 2008 summer session, your plans should be clearly stated, including proposed dates of appointment and level of support.
Applications should be submitted either in hardcopy or e-mail <swetzel@stanford.edu> to Sandra Wetzel (Yang & Yamazaki Envvironment & Energy Bldg. Room 316) before 5 PM on Wednesday, February 20. Applications received after this date may still be considered, pending availability of funding.
Questions about the program should be directed to Sandra Wetzel <swetzel@stanford.edu>, Susie Stone <sstone@stanford.edu> or Professor Alexandria Boehm <aboehm@stanford.edu>.
CEE Summer Undergraduate Research Projects: Students are encouraged to reference the CEE faculty web pages to learn more about the specific research interests and opportunities of the faculty. The following are some examples of faculty who have indicated project topics that they may have available this summer:
| Sustainable Natural Environment - Environment and Water Studies | |
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| Faculty: Alexandria Boehm E-mail: aboehm@stanford.edu Website: http://www.stanford.edu/~aboehm (1) Drinking water quality and human health. Student will work in the field in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania for 3 months and conduct field work with Tanzanians and Stanford students to study the association between drinking water quality, human behavior, and health outcomes in urban and peri-urban communities. Student must purchase their own airplane tickets to Dar es Salaam – VPUE stipend could be used for this. (2) Pathogens in California coastal streams. Student will work in the lab and the field to study the concentrations of human pathogens and microbial pollutants in coastal streams of central California. Student should take CEE 274P in the spring to take full advantage of this internship. |
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| Faculty: Jenna Davis E-mail: jennadavis@stanford.edu Website: http://www.stanford.edu/group/jennadavis/ (1) An investigation into the design of sustainable water systems for rural and peri-urban communities in developing countries. The field site for this project will be either Colombia or Kenya. Desired skills/interests include EITHER engineering/hydrology OR economics/statistics/computer programming. (2) Effects of water-quality information on attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. The field site for this project is Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Students will be required to live in Dar es Salaam for the summer with a Stanford research team. Desired skills/interests include EITHER environmental engineering/microbiology OR public health/statistics/computer programming. |
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| Faculty: Richard Luthy E-mail: luthy@stanford.edu Website: http://www-ce.stanford.edu/faculty/luthy/ Sediment contamination, water reuse and fate of trace contaminants in aquatic systems. Prof. Luthy’s area of teaching and research deals with water quality, especially physicochemical processes and engineering assessments. His team’s research involves laboratory and field assessments of water quality in both natural and engineered systems. An undergraduate student working with his team will assist with analysis of sediment samples and laboratory assays of sediment quality. The Luthy group is also interested in water reuse and the fate of trace contaminants. All work will be performed under the supervision of a PhD student or post doctoral researcher. |
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| Faculty: Jeffrey Koseff E-mail: koseff@stanford.edu Website: http://www-ce.stanford.edu/faculty/koseff/ Environmental fluid mechanics. Prof. Koseff’s area of research is environmental fluid mechanics. Students are invited to contact Prof. Koseff if they are interested in working in his group this summer. Please consult his website for more information on current research projects. |
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| Faculty: David L. Freyberg E-mail: freyberg@stanford.edu Faculty website: http://cee.stanford.edu/faculty/freyberg/ Searsville Dam and Reservoir—Sediment Accumulation and Management and Sediment-Reservoir-Wetland Interactions. The goal of this multi-faceted research project is to better understand the hydrologic interactions between Stanford’s Searsville Reservoir, its inflowing streams, and the large sediment deposit that has been trapped in the reservoir. The context is the need to make management decisions about the 114-year-old dam and its rapidly diminishing reservoir. Opportunities include field work designing, installing, and obtaining data from field instrumentation; analyzing field data to develop a water balance for the system; laboratory analysis of sediment core samples collected from the site; GIS analysis of accumulated sediment over time; assisting a Ph.D. student in implementing a mathematical model of flow through the system; literature review of reservoir sediment processes; and other similar projects. You will be working as part of a team of students and faculty and have considerable latitude to choose a project of greatest interest to you. |
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| Faculty: Robert Street Graduate Assistant: Rica Enriquez E-mail: street@stanford.edu Faculty website: http://www-ce.stanford.edu/faculty/street/ Project website: http://www.eol.ucar.edu/projects/trex/ Modeling turbulence in the atmosphere over Owens Valley. The project team participated in the Terrain-induced Rotor Experiment [T-REX] in Owens Valley CA and now is applying simulation codes to interpret and understand the field measurements. We seek a student who knows fluid mechanics, perhaps has taken CEE 63 Weather and Storms, and has good computer skills [e.g., MATLAB]. The work would involve generating graphic descriptions of simulation results, perhaps running code at the National Center for Atmospheric Research Computing Center, and helping a doctoral student with interpretations of the results. The research here focuses on the importance/impact of high resolution data for ground surface conditions [vegetation, snow, etc.] and modeling of the turbulence in the atmosphere. |
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| Sustainable Built Environment - Structures and Construction | |
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| Faculty: Sarah Billington E-mail: billington@stanford.edu Faculty website: http://www.stanford.edu/group/strgeo/People/billington.htm Protecting critical infrastructure facilities from natural hazards. This project involves experimental and analytical work. It focuses on using ductile fiber-reinforced concrete materials to retrofit hospitals and other critical infrastructure facilities to protect them against earthquakes. The student will work with a PhD student conducting material and connection tests at Stanford and assist with the design and testing of large-scale tests at Berkeley in the late summer and fall. |
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| Faculty: Sarah Billington E-mail: billington@stanford.edu Faculty website: http://www.stanford.edu/group/strgeo/People/billington.htm Manufacturing and Mechanical Testing of Sustainable Structural Composites. This project involves manufacturing sustainable structural composites (made of natural plant fibers and resins) using composite technology similar to that in the aerospace field. Specimens cut from the composites will be conditioned in various environments, and the mechanical properties will be tested using an MTS testing machine. |
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| Faculty: Sarah Billington & Craig Criddle E-mail: billington@stanford.edu, criddle@stanford.edu Faculty websites: http://www.stanford.edu/group/strgeo/People/billington.htm, http://www.stanford.edu/group/evpilot Microbial Production of Biodegradable Plastics for use in Sustainable Structural Composites. This project involves work in an environmental engineering lab. Experiments will study the production of an environmentally friendly plastic (polyhydroxyalkanoate, or PHA) from bacteria. Research will focus on alternative feedstocks for the bacteria, optimizing the efficiency of the process, and optimizing the structural properties of the plastic produced. |
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| Faculty: John Haymaker E-mail: haymaker@stanford.edu Website: http://www.stanford.edu/~haymaker/ (1) Design process modeling. To design sustainable buildings, design teams require transparent, searchable, scalable, modular, and user-friendly ways to document and manage their design processes. We are looking for a student to experiment with new visualization and searching techniques and help in the development of a design process mapping interface called Narrator. An ideal candidate would have some computer programming experience with Java. (2) Multidisciplinary design and analysis. For designers to generate sustainable designs, they need to be able to consider the impacts of many options on many different performance criteria. Building Information Modeling, model-based analyses, process integration, design optimization, and advanced forms of computerized decision assistance are emerging to help design teams navigate complex choices and find the most sustainable designs. This research would require a student to work in a multidisciplinary and collaborative laboratory atmosphere to apply advanced design modeling technologies to sustainable design problems. Ideal candidates are those with computer modeling and/or programming experience and interests. Prof. Haymaker invites students interested in other projects related to his area of expertise to contact him about developing independent projects. |
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| Faculty: Jack Baker E-mail: bakerjw@stanford.edu Faculty website: http://www.stanford.edu/~bakerjw/ Evaluating building code guidelines for selection of earthquake ground motions . This project involves identifying which properties of earthquake ground motions have the greatest impact on the response of buildings. The project will involve working with a digital library of recorded ground motions and computer models of buildings, and performing statistical analysis of building response results. The results will be used to improve building code guidelines for ground motion selection. Some computer programming experience is preferred. |
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| Faculty: Ray Levitt E-mail: ray.levitt@stanford.edu Faculty website: http://www.stanford.edu/people/Ray.Levitt/ Project website: http://www.crgp.stanford.edu Designing organizations for developing and operating global infrastructure projects more sustainably. This project could involve anyone or more of the following, depending on student interest: * Designing and running computer simulations in the laboratory, * Gathering data on real projects over the internet; or * Gathering data by visiting projects and interviewing participants. Students who have taken CEE47Q or CEE48N are especially encouraged to apply. Others will be considered. |
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