Sustainability

Çağlar Oskay has been named chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He is a professor of civil and environmental engineering and holds a secondary appointment as professor of mechanical engineering. His primary research focus is on multiscale computational modeling and simulation of material and structure systems… Read More

The Javits Center green roof spans more than 6 acres and is home to 29 bird species and thousands of honeybees. Photo courtesy of Adaptive Green. The Javits Center, the United Nations, and the Chrysler Building share more than status as New York City landmarks–they all have, or will have, green… Read More

A team of Vanderbilt undergraduate engineering students took the second spot in a national Jump into STEM challenge to develop holistic solutions that improve the resilience of the built environment. Francisco Diaz-Rodriguez The students—Francisco Diaz-Rodriguez, Jillian Flynn, Alex Holzke, and Ethan Rand—proposed a self-powered system to detect wildfires, especially in… Read More

Building and testing balsa wood towers with weights on equipment that shakes them and measures the failure frequency was so popular in Professor Lori Troxel’s Structural Engineering course that the activity is now part of the first-year civil engineering module she teaches. Nathan Miller, an engineering senior from Indianapolis, arrived at… Read More

Written by Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Caglar Oskay & Post-Doctoral Research Scholar Alessandro Fascetti. This article was originally posted on the VUBreakThru blog. A 2016 Trans-Institutional Program (TIPs) award, the Vanderbilt Initiative for Intelligent Resilient Infrastructure Systems (IRIS) continues to make progress. The development of the… Read More

Dana Brown Gutwein (BE'06) in a presentation about Lakewood, Colorado's Sustainable Neighborhoods Network. (Vanderbilt University/Heidi Hall) Dana Brown Gutwein’s career started in the oil fields of California, pump jacks as far as the eye could see, running tests all day and sleeping in her truck at night. Read More

Leslie Gillespie-Marthaler touring a site adjoining Sterling Ranch in Colorado. (Heidi Hall/Vanderbilt University) Leslie Gillespie-Marthaler spent almost two decades as a U.S. Army officer, defense contractor and Pentagon and EPA employee, promoting sustainability across installations and federal agencies. She helped break barriers in two areas dominated by… Read More

A team of 30 Vanderbilt University students and professors from across the disciplines spent a series of information-packed, 14-hour days in suburban Denver to understand better how their work will lead to smart, sustainable cities. They returned from that winter break trip with the context of research already underway –… Read More

For well over a decade, Vanderbilt Engineering alumnus Brock Smethills (BE’13) and his family have been driving to a picturesque spot just south of Denver, envisioning the futuristic wonderland it would become. Houses where the residents pay mere pocket change for utilities thanks to solar power and a one-of-a-kind system… Read More

At the Sterling Ranch groundbreaking were, from left: Clark Murray (BS ’13), Scott Trench (BS ’13), Professor Lori Troxel, Carlton Jester (BE ’17), Alexander Macklis (BE ’16), and Brock Smethills (BE ‘13). A Vanderbilt University alumnus and his family broke ground this month on a 21st century… Read More