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NEW! Post Doctoral Fellow Opportunity: 

Postdoctoral Researcher Position

Dr. Kathleen (Kate) Smits
Department Chair, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Solomon Professor for Global Development
Senior Fellow, Hunt Institute for Engineering and Humanity

Contact Kate

The ever-increasing food, water, and energy demands are driven by higher consumption and a growing global population has transformed the world economically, politically, and ecologically. Smits’ research team believes that solutions to food, water, and energy issues must be informed by scientific understanding and community values. Therefore, we (1) develop and implement novel science and engineering solutions to best understand water, food, and energy issues and (2) engage with diverse stakeholders to include local communities, policymakers, and industry in productive discussions about sustainable solutions. The motivation to Smits’ research group is to answer questions applied to many current and emerging problems such as greenhouse gas emissions, evapotranspiration, agricultural yields, the remediation of contaminated soil, and the storage of renewable energy. Smits’ research combines theoretical, numerical, and experimental approaches to address food, water, and energy concerns occurring near the earth’s surface. Her group’s main focus is performing detailed and highly controlled experiments at the lab and field scales that are then used to develop and test theories and numerical models to develop solutions.

 

Student and Post Doctoral Fellow Opportunities

NEW! Post Doctoral Fellow Opportunity: 

Postdoctoral Researcher Position SMU


If you’re interested in becoming a member of our team as an undergraduate, graduate student, postdoctoral scholar, or even as a high school intern please feel free to inquire with me directly.

Information about admission to the MS, MA, or PhD programs in Civil and Environmental Engineering and Sustainable Development.

Affiliations

News & Events

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Congratulations to our MS student Richard S. Kolodziej IV

Congratulations to CEE MS student Richard S. Kolodziej IV, who graduated from the Environmental Engineering program. His research focused on evaluating and advancing the current state of Leak Detection and Quantification and developing solutions for below-ground Natural Gas pipeline leaks.

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Congratulations to our PhD student Navodi Jayarathne

Congratulations to CEE PhD student Navodi Jayarathne, who graduated from the Civil Engineering program. Her research focused on gas diffusivity of different soils including urban soils, agricultural soils, arctic soils (permafrost layer), and manufactured aggregated porous media with implications on infrastructure safety, greenhouse gas emissions, and terrestrial & outer space crop cultivation under different collaborations.

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NSF IRES proposal “Socially and environmentally responsible engineering for enhancing livelihoods within mining communities” will be funded

A collaborative NSF IRES proposal, entitled “Socially and environmentally responsible engineering for enhancing livelihoods within mining communities,” will be funded for 3 years. This project aims to provide U.S. students from Southern Methodist University (SMU) and Colorado School of Mines (Mines) the opportunity to perform cutting-edge research in collaboration with faculty and students at the …

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