Chester P. Siess (MS 39, PhD 48) spent nearly 30 years on the department faculty, serving as Head from 1973-1978. Siess was tireless in his research studies and instruction of more than 1,100 students. While at Illinois, he conducted research that provided the basis for much of the thinking behind the building codes for reinforced and prestressed concrete. Siess was an active participant in technical societies, including the American Concrete Institute for which he served as President (1974-75). His many honors include membership in the National Academy of Engineering. Additional gifts are needed to fully fund this space.

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The late CEE alumnus and Professor Emeritus Arthur R. Robinson (MS 53, PhD 56) taught for five years at the University of Minnesota after his graduation from Illinois, then returned to teach on the department faculty until 1993, when he retired. With a strong background in applied mechanics and mathematics, Robinson specialized in the fields of dynamic elasticity, numerical methods analysis, non-linear structural problems, earthquake ground motions and numerical solutions of ordinary differential equations. He died in 2015.

The Modernization plan will connect the new CEE building to the Yeh Student Center via a Smart Bridge, instrumented with the latest infrastructure sensing technology for use as a teaching tool. The proposed student collaboration spaces are located along the bridge deck and will be popular gathering places for CEE students and visitors. Additional funding is required to fully furnish this space.

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Alumnus and Professor Emeritus German R. Gurfinkel (MS 57, PhD 66) has taught in the department for more than 50 years. Before joining the faculty in 1962, he taught for two years (1959-61) in the Civil Engineering Department of the University of Havana. He officially retired from the Illinois CEE faculty in 1998 but has continued to teach classes ever since. Gurfinkel has received numerous awards for teaching, research and professional practice in the field of Structural Engineering.

The Modernization plan will connect the new CEE building to the Yeh Student Center via a Smart Bridge, instrumented with the latest infrastructure sensing technology for use as a teaching tool. The proposed student collaboration spaces are located along the bridge deck and will be popular gathering places for CEE students and visitors. Additional funding is required to fully furnish this space.

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Alumnus and Professor Emeritus Mete A. Sozen (MS 52, PhD 57) made a profound, lasting impact on students and colleagues during his 65-year career in structural engineering research and education. He taught at Illinois from 1957 to 1994, when he accepted a faculty position at Purdue University. He is remembered by generations of structural engineers as a transformative and inspiring educator and a brilliant engineer. We hope this collaboration space is just the first project to honor him. Additional funding is required to fully furnish this space.

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Alumnus and Professor Emeritus William L. Gamble (MS 61, PhD 62) taught on the department faculty from 1963 until his retirement. He has taught five different undergraduate and graduate courses in the areas of reinforced and prestressed concrete, plus a course on the fire resistance of structures. He is co-author (with Robert Park of New Zealand) of the book "Reinforced Concrete Slabs" (Wiley, 2nd Ed., 2000). 

The Modernization plan will connect the new CEE building to the Yeh Student Center via a Smart Bridge, instrumented with the latest infrastructure sensing technology for use as a teaching tool. The proposed student collaboration spaces are located along the bridge deck and will be popular gathering places for CEE students and visitors. Additional funding is required to fully furnish this space.

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The Kavita and Lalit Bahl Smart Bridge is a focal point of the CEE Modernization plan and will become a campus landmark. The 2,200-square-foot suspension bridge will connect the Hydrosystems Lab with Newmark Lab. The bridge will be a comfortable space with collaborative and lounge areas, and will be fully instrumented to make it a teaching tool and showcase for the latest infrastructure monitoring technology.  The bridge itself is fully funded thanks to a generous gift by Kavita and Lalit Bahl. Opportunities still exist, however, to fund and name collaboration areas along the bridge deck.

Lalit is an alumnus of Illinois’ Electrical and Computer Engineering department who earned his master’s degree in 1966 and his Ph.D. in 1969. Kavita’s late first husband, Ravindar K. Kinra, earned his Ph.D. in 1968 from Illinois CEE. Gratitude for their education and the research assistantships the two men received during that time motivates Lalit and Kavita’s continued philanthropy to this day.

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Sharon L. Wood (MS 83, PhD 86) is dean of the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin.
She is a structural engineer with research interests in improving the structural response of reinforced concrete
buildings, design and evaluation of bridges, and development of passive sensors for infrastructure systems. Additional funding is needed to fully furnish and equip these offices. 

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John D. Haltiwanger (1925-2008) was educator, mentor and adviser to generations of U.S. Coast Guard CEE students at the University of Illinois. Since the mid-1960s, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) sent its officers to the University of Illinois to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering. For most of them, the faculty member who helped define their experience was Professor John D. Haltiwanger. From 1965, when the first Coast Guard students arrived in Champaign-Urbana, until 1980, Haltiwanger served as adviser to the Coast Guard students who came to Illinois. As the Coast Guard Academy expanded its civil engineering offerings in the mid-1970s, Haltiwanger helped design its curriculum and facilities. 

Haltiwanger served as served as Associate Head for Undergraduate Affairs in CEE from 1967-1983, and was a member of the USCG Academy Academic Advisory Committee from 1980-1983. He was honored with many notable awards during his career, including a Public Service Commendation and the Meritorious Public Service Award from the USCG, the Bliss Medal of the Society of American Military Engineers, and election to Honorary Membership in the American Society of Civil Engineers. Throughout his career at Illinois, he was widely considered to be one of its most gifted teachers by both students and faculty.

Additional gifts needed to fully realize this space.

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 Chi Epsilon is an honorary civil engineering fraternity established in 1922 by students at the University of Illinois with the support and guidance of Dean M.S. Ketchum, Professor Ira O. Baker and Professor C. C. Williams. The 25 charter members took steps to expand the organization into a national fraternity and in following years additional chapters were established at a number of universities around the country. Chi Epsilon recognizes outstanding students and graduates for their scholarship, character, practicality and sociability in order to foster excellence, connectivity and engagement in the civil engineering community. Additional funding is needed to fully realize this display. 

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Technology will be key to the effective introduction of new instructional methods. Additional funding is needed to fully equip the Instructional Technology Hub. Naming opportunity exists for this space; contact Katya Trubitsyna (katia@illinois.edu or 217-300-0194) for more information on a naming gift.

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Louis Richard “Dick” Shaffer (MS 57, PhD 61) taught for nearly 40 years on the Illinois CEE faculty. He joined the department as an instructor in 1955 and was appointed chair of the Construction Engineering group in 1961. During his tenure in this post the curriculum for construction engineering and management was revamped so as to be based on more scientific principles associated with computer usage, namely operations research, systems engineering, linear program and queuing theory. In 1963 he obtained funding to establish the U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory in civil engineering, the first attempt by the Department of Defense to partner directly with a university. The lab was dedicated in July 1969 with Shaffer as Deputy Director/Technical Director, a post he held for 25 years. Under his direction CERL grew from a starting budget of $2 million and 62 personnel to a world class research facility with a $100 million program and some 1,000 employees. He remained as the civilian senior executive for CERL until his death, remaining as an adjunct professor in the department. Additional gifts needed to fully realize this space.

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Internationally renowned structural engineer Alfredo H.-S. Ang (MS 57, PhD 59) joined the faculty in 1959 and retired in 1988. He is now Emeritus Research Professor at the University of California-Irvine. During his career Ang combined academic research and teaching in several aspects of structural mechanics and structural engineering. His major effort was directed toward structural safety by applying probability and reliability concepts in structural engineering and he made significant pioneering contributions to probability-based safety analysis and design applied to a variety of problems in structural engineering. Ang is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, having been one of the youngest ever inducted at the age of 46. Additional funding is needed to fully realize this space.

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Professor Ellis Danner earned his B.S. in Railroad Civil Engineering (1930) and M.S. degree in Civil Engineering (Highways) (1949) from Illinois. Danner worked for the Illinois Division of Highways until 1940, when he was called to active duty in the U.S. Army. He joined the CEE at Illinois faculty in 1946, where he served until his retirement in 1974. Danner's research was primarily in the areas of highway administration and management of professional and technical personnel, project management and pavement materials. He was noted for early studies on the effects of soil types and characteristics in the design and construction of pavements. Danner was considered to be an excellent teacher and developed several new transportation courses. Many of his students became prominent transportation engineers both in practice and at universities. Additional funding is needed to fully furnish this office.

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Edwin Gaylord Jr. graduated from Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio; received a bachelor's degree from Case Institute, Cleveland, Ohio; and a master's degree from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Gaylord joined the civil engineering faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1956 where he stayed until his retirement in 1971. Gaylord co-authored a number of structural engineering textbooks, including Handbook of Structural Engineering and Design of Steel Structures. Among other honors, Gaylord was awarded the G. Brooks Earnest Award for outstanding contributions to the civil engineering profession by the Cleveland section of the American Society of Civil Engineering. Fully funded.

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LeRoy T. Boyer joined the CEE at Illinois faculty in 1966, after earning a B.S. (1960) and Ph.D. (1966) from University of Minnesota. He was part of the Construction Engineering and Management group and centered his research on design and management information systems; estimating, bidding and cost control; construction process risk allocation; and construction automation.  An active member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Boyer was a Registered Professional Engineering in Illinois and also served as consultant on many projects, including NASA’s static inflation tests of the Passive Geodetic Earth Orbiting Satellite series. Fully funded.

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A member of the CEE at Illinois faculty for more than 30 years, Professor Moreland Herrin was a leader in the transportation engineering group and an early contributor to the science of pavement engineering. Specializing in bituminous materials and pavement design, Herrin was described by a colleague as the “go-to asphalt guy” for the Illinois Department of Transportation for many years. He founded the Illinois Bituminous Paving Conference, served as president of the International Association of Asphalt Pavement Technologists in 1978 and was recognized as the Illinois Asphalt Paving Association’s Man of the Year in 1985. Having practiced engineering as a consultant and researcher before teaching at the university level, Herrin brought critical expertise and knowledge of the industry to his role in academia. He educated and inspired generations of transportation engineering professionals. Additional funding is required to fully furnish this space.

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In support of CEE’s Modernization Plan and in recognition of its long history of service to the department and its alumni, students and faculty, current and past members of the CEE Alumni Association Board of Directors are contributing to fund a named collaboration space in the new building addition. The space is located prominently on the third floor of the building, near both the outlet to the Smart Bridge and the Alumni Welcome Center. Additional funding is required to fully furnish this space. All are welcome to contribute, regardless of board service.

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The Sidney Epstein Alumni Welcome Center will be located on the third floor of the new addition to the Hydrosystems Laboratory, near the entrance of the smart bridge. A gift by CEE alumnus Mickey Kupperman (BS 57, MS 58) and his wife, Janice, has fully funded this space in honor of Mickey’s 45-year career and 60-year friendship with Sidney Epstein (BS 43). Epstein (1923-2016) is remembered in Chicago for both his engineering accomplishments and his philanthropy. A. Epstein and Sons Inc. has been credited with pioneering the “design-build” concept of construction. The firm worked on such projects as the Federal Center and the Harold Washington Public Library, both in Chicago, and the Maine Montparnasse Tower in Paris. Epstein was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1959 and a Fellow of the Society of American Registered Architects in 1969. He was also co-founder, with Elliott Donnelley, of Chicago Youth Centers, Chicago’s largest private urban youth organization. This space is fully funded.

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During their long careers at the University of Illinois, alumni and professors emeriti Barry J. Dempsey (BS 60, MS 66, PhD 69) and Marshall R. Thompson (BS 60, MS 62, PhD 64) educated and inspired generations of students who became leaders in transportation engineering. The impact of these educators and researchers has been seen in transportation infrastructure projects around the world. Additional funding is required to fully furnish and equip this classroom.

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J.L. Merritt Structural Design Laboratory was funded by a gift from an alumnus who preferred to remain anonymous, in honor of former professor and alumnus J.L. Merritt (MS 55, PhD 58) and Merritt’s wife, Eleanor. Merritt served on the CEE faculty at Illinois from 1958 until 1968, teaching and doing research in structural engineering. In 1968, he left academia and became an engineering consultant. His area of expertise was in evaluating and developing design criteria for seismic and other accidental effects on a variety of structures, including nuclear reactors.  Merritt died in 2018. This space is fully funded.

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Graduate student offices are in critically short supply in the department. New office spaces will ensure that the top students and future leaders of the profession who pursue advanced study and research in the department will have adequate spaces in which to work. In addition, the availability of new office spaces will help greatly with graduate student recruiting. General support is needed to equip these third floor office spaces and individual work stations are available for naming at $20,000 each. Additional funding is needed to fully furnish and equip these office spaces.

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Alumnus David L. Byrd (BS 01, MS 06) is a longtime member and, beginning in Fall 2022, president of the CEE Alumni Association Board of Directors. He is District Manager for Envista Forensics, where he brings over 20 years of combined engineering, construction and management experience to his work. David and his wife Monica, an Illinois Accounting alumna (BS 01) of the Gies College of Business, opted to fund this technology hub in recognition of its vital function to the overall building, supporting those that use the facility for their research and education. This space is fully funded.

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Douglas A. Foutch (BS 70) joined the CEE at Illinois faculty in 1976, where he taught classes in design of steel structures, design of structural systems, structural dynamics and earthquake engineering. Among his honors are the Haliburton Education Leadership Award, the Arthur M. Wellington Research Prize and the Normal Medal. Additional gifts are needed to fully realize this space.

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Albert J. Valocchi joined the CEE at Illinois faculty in 1981. He was Associate Head/Director of Graduate Studies from 2004-2012, and is currently serving as Interim Head. He is the Abel Bliss Professor of Engineering and teaches courses in water resources engineering and science. In 2009, he became a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. Additional gifts needed to fully realize this space.

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Alumnus and Professor Emeritus Neil M. Hawkins (MS 59, PhD 61) joined the faculty at the University of Illinois in 1991, serving as Head of Civil and Environmental Engineering from 1991-1996 and Interim Head from 2001-2002. Hawkins taught graduate and undergraduate courses in structural analysis, reinforced and prestressed concrete design, steel design, earthquake engineering, and bridge design. He authored the book Reinforced Concrete Structures in Seismic Zones (American Concrete Institute, 1977). Hawkins is Chapter Honor Member of Chi Epsilon, Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers 2011 and Fellow of the Structural Institute of ASCE, Honorary Member 2012 and Fellow of the American Concrete Institute, Titan and Fellow of the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute, and Legend of the Post-Tensioning Institute. Additional funding is needed to fully realize this space.

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Professor Emeritus David A. Lange joined the CEE at Illinois faculty in 1992 where he taught graduate and undergraduate courses in civil engineering materials, repair of civil structures, systems engineering and engineering economics. He served as Associate Head of the department from 2004-2010 and was also Director of the Center of Excellence for Airport Technology. Lange’s expertise and research in the area of cement-based materials attracted significant attention and funding from federal and state agencies, industry partners and research organizations. Throughout his career, he received several research awards and was named fellow of the American Concrete Institute and the American Ceramic Society. Lange retired from the department in 2020. Additional funding is needed to fully realize this space.

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Jerry Benson (BS 75) retired after 30 years with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL). He founded and was one of four owners of Isotech Laboratories Inc., which used elemental isotopes for a variety of environmental applications. The company grew to establish branches in Egypt, Australia and Brazil. When Isotech was sold in 2011, Benson retired to Lafayette, Colo. He has made a gift to name the faculty lounge in honor of his late wife, Terry, who passed away in 2017. This space is fully funded.

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The late CEE alumnus and Professor Emeritus John W. Melin (MS 56, PhD 61) was a member of the CEE at Illinois faculty for more than 30 years. He specialized in structural dynamics and analysis of roof shells, and application of computers to civil engineering problems. One of his early achievements was the development of structural engineering software for analyzing guyed towers. Melin was a notable addition to the Construction Engineering and Management program, and hundreds of students learned the fenced bar chart scheduling technique he pioneered in his Construction Planning and Project Controls course. In addition to being a dedicated teacher, he was generous with his time and service to the university, department and community. Melin died in 1999.  Additional funding is needed to fully furnish and equip this office. 

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For more than 150 years, CEE faculty and alumni have been making history and changing the world. Located in a prominent spot in the second floor, a series of display cases are planned to highlight impactful people from the department. Sponsorship opportunities exist for this space; contact Katya Trubitsyna (katia@illinois.edu or 217-300-0194) for more information on sponsoring a display.

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During 35 years on the CEE at Illinois faculty, Professor Ben Chie Yen educated and inspired students who became civil and environmental engineering leaders around the world. He worked with Ven Te Chow, pioneering the investigation of hydrologic problems from the perspective of fluid mechanics and the development of computer models in the holistic modeling of watersheds. Yen’s contributions also include being one of the first researchers to work on urban storm water drainage. A library in the new addition will be named in honor of Yen, and will house a number of rare and historical books currently stored in CEE’s Water Resources Engineering and Science office area. These writings do not enjoy wide use, due to the department not having a protected area in which to display them and grant access. This library space named for Ben Chie Yen will ensure that faculty and students gain secure access to these important hydraulic engineering texts as well as an appreciation for the contribution of one of the department’s most eminent educators.

Father and son John Conrad Quade (BS 1895) and Maurice Northrup Quade (BS 25, MS 27) are two of the department’s earliest and most notable alumni. As practicing engineers in the early years of the 20th century, they made fundamental contributions at a time when civil and environmental engineers were building our nation’s infrastructure and shaping modern society as we know it. They were students as the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was building its international reputation for civil and environmental engineering innovation and leadership. Maurice N. Quade was described by his fellow partners at Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas as “an engineer’s engineer” and “the best structural engineer in the country.” He worked on some of the firm’s most important bridges in the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s. A colleague described him this way: “Maurice Quade was a father to me. ... I could always go into his office and discuss things in my brash way and would always come out with a friendly, well-thought-out answer. Sometimes he even made me believe it was my idea.”  (from “Parsons Brinckerhoff Through the Years: 1885-2012”)

Additional funding is needed to fully realize this space. 

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As a member of the department faculty for 20 years, Professor James G. Clark taught generations of CEE students from 1936 to 1956. He provided structural engineering consulting on projects throughout the state of Illinois and beyond, including the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and the College of Law building on the University of Illinois campus. When he left the department to pursue a consulting career, Clark founded a prominent civil engineering consulting firm, Clark-Dietz. Not done building his legacy, Clark left Clark-Dietz in 1981 and became a key founder and sustaining supporter of ESCA Consultants, a civil and structural engineering firm located in Urbana, Ill., where he worked until his retirement in 1989. Additional gifts needed to fully realize this space.

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Few stories of academic history are as compelling as that of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The faculty and students who have passed through the CEE department at Illinois throughout its long history have shaped the nation, defined the future of the profession and made Illinois synonymous with great civil and environmental engineering. The era of the mid-20th century in particular has been called the Golden Era of CEE, when Nathan M. Newmark served as Head. During those decades, top engineering minds from around the world converged on Champaign-Urbana, drawn by its already impressive reputation and to the stellar research and teaching faculty Newmark was assembling. The resulting connections and collaborations led to unprecedented advances in science and engineering. It was largely this epoch that forged the world-class reputation the department enjoys today. Newmark’s individual contributions to the field of structural engineering led to a long list of honors and a reputation as one of the most influential figures in American civil engineering history. Fully funded.

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Lopez earned his B.S. (1962) and M.S. (1963) in civil engineering from Tufts University and his Ph.D. (1966) from the University of Illinois. After a year of teaching at Lehigh University, he spent his career in CEE at Illinois, retiring in 1998. Lopez was an early leader in the use of computers for structural engineering applications. He taught, conducted research, published, consulted and lectured on computer-related topics for over 30 years. Lopez advanced the department’s capacity in the area of computer use in engineering education and his courses became the model for similar courses taught at many other universities in the United States. Software systems that resulted from his research include SCAN, POLO, FINITE and SICAD. In 2019, Lopez received the Distinguished Faculty Award from the CEE Alumni Association. Additional funding is needed to fully realize this space.

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Judith S. Liebman began her career at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1972 as an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, later moving to the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. From 1986 to 1992 she served as Vice Chancellor for Research and Dean of the Graduate College. She is Professor Emerita of Operations Research in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Illinois. She holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering from The Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. in Physics from the University of Colorado. She has chaired the Advisory Committee for the National Science Foundation Engineering Directorate. Her other service has included membership on the Army Science Board and as president of the Council of the Operations Research Society of America. She has served on the University of Colorado Foundation Board of Directors and its Board of Trustees. Liebman has authored or co-authored many research publications and received numerous awards for excellence in teaching.

Professor Jon Liebman joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1972 as a Professor of Environmental Engineering.  During his tenure he was Associate Head of the Department of Civil Engineering from 1976-1978, and Head of the Department for six years from 1978-1984.  Professor Liebman retired in 1996 and was conferred status as Professor Emeritus.  Among his many honors are being named the first recipient of the UIUC College of Engineering Rose Award for Teaching Excellence (1997); Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award, College of Engineering, University of Colorado at Boulder (1998); Tsuan Hua Feng Distinguished Lecturer, University of Massachusetts (1998); and induction into the Society of Scholars, The Johns Hopkins University (1999).

The Judith S. and Jon Liebman Gallery will serve as a collaboration space for students. Avid collectors of contemporary glass art, the Liebmans are donating an art glass piece entitled ”Engineer,” by British artist David Reekie, that will be displayed in the space. 

Additional funding is required to fully furnish this space.

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For many years, graduates of CEE at Illinois have gone on to exciting careers at ExxonMobil. In addition, the company’s commitment to philanthropy in higher education has benefited generations of CEE students. In support of CEE’s Modernization Plan and in recognition of this strong partnership, CEE at Illinois alumni and friends who are current or retired ExxonMobil employees are contributing to fund a named space in the new building addition. The ExxonMobil Conference room is located prominently in a corner room on the second floor of the building, near a student collaboration area, a large classroom, faculty offices and graduate student offices. Additional funding is required to fully furnish this space.

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Graduate student offices are in critically short supply in the department. New office spaces will ensure that the top students and future leaders of the profession who pursue advanced study and research in the department will have adequate spaces in which to work. In addition, the availability of new office spaces will help greatly with graduate student recruiting. General support is needed to equip these second floor office spaces and individual work stations are available for naming at $20,000 each. Additional funding is needed to fully furnish and equip these office spaces. 

To date, individual workstations within the suite have been named in honor of Fred L. Gau Jr. (BS 67) and Steven J. Fenves (BS 57, MS 58, PhD 61).

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A gift from alumnus Wilbur Milhouse (BS 94, MS 95) and his wife, Dawn, has established the Milhouse Family Classroom. The classroom name has a dual meaning: in addition to Milhouse’s personal family, it also refers to the individuals who work at Milhouse Engineering & Construction Inc., the firm he founded in 2001. A longtime supporter of the University of Illinois and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Milhouse is a recent winner of the CEEAA Distinguished Alumnus Award. He is involved with many civic and charitable groups including Milhouse Charities, which he founded in 2012. This space is fully funded.

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The first-ever concrete canoe competition took place in 1971, a year after Professor Clyde E. Kesler (BS 43, MS 46) tasked his students in the concrete design class with making a concrete canoe as an alternative to the standard high-strength cylinders or reinforced beams. Since that first class, and that first competition (against Purdue), the Concrete Canoe has been an annual tradition. This display will honor that history and celebrate the unique tradition that remains a part of students’ lives to this day. Additional funding is needed to fully fund this display. 

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The Robert and Glenda Johnson Student Collaboration Space will communicate CEE’s commitment to diversity and invite students of all backgrounds – particularly the underrepresented population of students of color – to commit their talents and energy to the critical profession of civil and environmental engineering. In addition to lounge and table seating, art in the space will celebrate the beauty of Chicago’s south side, communicating non-verbally that students of all backgrounds are welcome in CEE at Illinois. CEE alumnus Rashod R. Johnson (BS 00, MS UIC 05), president and CEO at Ardmore Roderick in Chicago, shared this vision, and generously made a leadership gift to establish and name this student collaboration area in honor of his parents, Robert and Glenda. This space is fully funded..

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During 40 years on the faculty of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Professor Emeritus William J. Hall (MS 51, PhD 54) educated and inspired generations of students who became civil and environmental engineering leaders around the world. He was involved with many major engineering projects, including being part of the design team for the Trans-Alaska petroleum pipeline, many nuclear power plants, and major projects of agencies of the U.S. government, for example, Department of Defense protective structures and nuclear materials. His accomplishments included Distinguished Membership in the American Society of Civil Engineers, being named a National Honor Member of Chi Epsilon, receiving the Housner Medal of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, and being elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering — one of the youngest people ever elected. He led the department as Head from 1984-1991. Hall died on June 9, 2020. Additional funding is required to fully furnish and equip this classroom.

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During more than 35 years on the faculty of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Professor Emeritus Vernon L. Snoeyink educated and inspired generations of students in the area of water quality engineering. His many honors include membership in the National Academy of Engineering. The Vernon L. Snoeyink Water Chemistry Laboratory will feature a glass wall so that visitors can view the activities going on inside. As such, this laboratory will offer the most visible example in this new space of the work done in CEE. Additional funding is required to fully furnish and equip this lab.

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Professor Emeritus Robert H. Dodds Jr. (MS 75, PhD 78) spent his career on the faculty of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He served as department head from 2004-2009, advancing the department significantly in that short time with the achievement of the M.T. Geoffrey Yeh Student Center and the establishment of the department’s successful professional master’s degree program. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Robert H. Dodds Jr. Commons, or “Dodds Commons,” will be located prominently in the first-floor lobby of the new building, and will feature the main donor installation for the building. Supported by the CEE Department in gratitude of his visionary leadership. Additional funding is required to fully furnish this space.

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The department has a long history of leadership in the area of environmental fluid mechanics. A state-of-the-art laboratory dedicated to fluid mechanics research and instruction will ensure that CEE students receive an excellent education in this critical field and that Illinois retains its preeminence in this area.  Additional funding is needed to fully equip this lab. Naming opportunity exists for this lab; contact Katya Trubitsyna (katia@illinois.edu or 217-300-0194) for more information on a naming gift.

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Alumnus and Professor Emeritus Ernest J. Barenberg (PhD 65) served for more than 40 years on the transportation engineering faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During that time, he served as Associate Head for four years and as an associate director for the Federal Aviation Administration Center of Excellence for Airport Technology for more than eight years. Over the course of his long career, he made many contributions through consulting and research in his primary areas of expertise – concrete pavements, paving materials and railroad track systems. His was active in a number of professional societies and was a founding member and the first president of the International Society for Concrete Pavements. Additional funding is required to fully furnish and equip this lab.

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John T. Pfeffer served on the environmental engineering faculty at Illinois from 1967 to 1996. He died in 2017 at age 81. Pfeffer’s research included work in waste management engineering. He served as a trustee for the Urbana-Champaign Sanitary District for 18 years and worked with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. 

The Sanitation and Resource Recovery (SR2) Laboratory will be a Bio-Safety Level II lab that will allow researchers access to urine for experimentation purposes thanks to a direct connection to a restroom on the first floor of the building. While researchers in other environmental programs also utilize human waste streams, Illinois’s lab will be unique in that it will provide researchers access to both a continuous supply of source-separated waste streams and lab space to conduct experiments in real time.

Additional funding is needed to fully equip this lab. 

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A member of the CEE at Illinois faculty since 2005, Professor Gary Parker is the only current faculty member to be named to the National Academy of Sciences, and only the third faculty member to receive this honor in the history of the department; the first was Nathan Newmark, and the second was Don U. Deere. Parker’s major research interests are the mechanics of sediment-laden flow in rivers and turbidity currents, and resulting flow-boundary morphodynamic interactions. His current efforts focus on delta evolution, bedrock-alluvial transitions, bedrock meandering, drainage network formation, advection-dispersion of tracer pebbles, formation of continental shelves, muddy tidal morphodynamics, role of washload in rivers, long-runout turbidity currents and natural dam formation in meteogenic travertine systems. He is also a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and has received numerous awards from the American Society of Civil Engineers and the International Association of Hydraulic Research. Additional funding is required to fully furnish and equip this lab.

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The geotechnical engineering program at Illinois has its foundation in the earliest days of the university, when civil engineering students studied topics like tunneling and mining engineering. The early years of the geotechnical group were dominated by Ralph B. Peck, Thomas H. Thorburn, Herbert O. Ireland and Donald U. Deere, with Karl Terzaghi as visiting research professor. Later waves of faculty further contributed to the growing reputation of geotechnical engineering at Illinois. Edward J. Cording, Melvin T. "Tom" Davisson, Gabriel G. Fernandez, Alfred J. “Skip” Hendron Jr., Gholamreza Mesri, Peter A. Lenzini and Alberto S. Nieto are among those names, and they are being honored with a named laboratory in the new addition. Additional funding is required to fully furnish and equip this lab.

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Engineering geologist Don U. Deere (PhD 55) and geotechnical engineer Ralph B. Peck, both professors of civil engineering at Illinois, and “father of soil mechanics” Karl von Terzaghi, a visiting research professor and frequent lecturer at Illinois, built the world’s premier geotechnical engineering program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. These pioneers shaped the education of geotechnical engineering leaders around the world, both directly and through their mentorship of the Illinois geotechnical engineering faculty who followed them — and redefined the field of geotechnical engineering in the process. Additional funding is required to fully furnish and equip this lab.

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