While I was walking to my classroom and saw the many eager students, I was reminded why we continually strive to improve the educational experience: to ensure our next generation of engineers will be prepared to lead and take us to new heights.

For the Lyles School of Civil and Construction Engineering to be seen and recognized as one of the premiere programs is truly a tremendous honor. And it is something our faculty and staff persistently pursue to make every school year a better experience than the next.

Last year, civil engineering officially merged with construction engineering and management where we saw 116 new undergrads join us, making us one of the largest programs in the country with 763 undergrads and 381 graduate students. The transition went a lot smoother than I could have hoped for — and it is thanks to students, alumni, faculty, staff and partners who came together to ensure it would be a success.

Now, thanks to everyone’s efforts, we can start looking beyond the merger and integration and once again set our sights fully on greater efforts and achievements. Together — as one, unified school.

In this edition, we will share several of these continuing endeavors through our innovative research as well as how we are providing resources to our students to pursue their own goals so that all our small steps will cumulatively lead to more giant leaps forward.

These stories include an exploration into the Institute for Innovation Science where graduate students pursue an array of research interests with support of faculty and staff. We also have stories on world-impacting research into seismic design, travel, and improvements to one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World — the Panama Canal.

These are just a few of the many incredible efforts taking place as we continue to innovate and improve the way we educate and prepare our students and positively impact the world through research. I look forward to sharing even more of these stories soon.

All the best,

Rao S. Govindaraju
Bowen Engineering Head of Civil Engineering and
Christopher B. and Susan S. Burke Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering