An excerpt of the article originally published in The Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Va.) on Thursday, July 26, 2007. Published with permission.

The University of Virginia’s Department of Civil Engineering has changed its name to reflect a new emphasis on sustainability.

Now called the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, it has reorganized to focus on two key research areas: environmental and water resources engineering, and civil infrastructure systems.

“We have been evolving an emphasis on sustainability,” said department Chairman Michael J. Demetsky. “Now the emphasis is on issues like the world’s energy problem, renewable resources, traffic congestion and more. We’re addressing those things that people are dealing with in their daily lives.”

The department will incorporate principles of sustainable engineering into its curriculum and research. Demetsky said the department’s researchers could investigate ways to sustain the life of roads, cut down on pollution from power plants and incorporate public transit in city planning.

Also as part of the new research thrust, faculty members will focus on the adoption of information technology in civil engineering projects.

High-tech monitoring, for example, can lengthen the life of civil engineering projects, Demetsky said. As an example, he cited Albemarle’s Advance Mills Bridge, which has been closed indefinitely because of deterioration. By installing sensors that track the bridge’s health, he said, the problems could have been identified earlier and fixed before they became irreparable.

By January, the department will have hired three additional faculty members, bringing its total number of researchers and professors to 15. The addition of five or six faculty members is also in the plans, Demetsky said.

One new hire is water resources engineering professor Joanna Curran, who joined UVa on Monday.

Curran is an expert in minimizing the impact of civil engineering projects that deal with water, such as dams.

“Where the concrete meets the river, that’s where I like to be,” she said.

Sustainability in civil engineering is increasingly in demand from local governments, Curran said. When she saw the job ad stating that UVa’s department was beginning to emphasize sustainability, she knew she wanted to be a part of it.

“When I saw that job announcement, I was excited,” she said. “These days, it’s all about sustainability.”