Civil & Environmental Engineering (Graduate Program)

For information regarding the UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM, click here.  

Program Overview

The Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering’s graduate program is characterized by its work in the areas of coastal engineering, environmental engineering, and infrastructure engineering. Graduate and research programs are organized within this framework into six focus areas: environmental engineering, geotechnical engineering, structural engineering, mechanics of materials, transportation engineering, and water resources/coastal engineering. All areas have excellent research facilities and equipment to conduct basic and applied research. Projects of local, regional, national and international importance are underway. In the last five years, graduate student enrollment has ranged from 110-130.

Administration

Admission

Applications and supporting materials for all graduate study must be submitted through the online application site for the LSU Graduate School. Official transcripts, official test scores, and other materials that come from third-party sources must be mailed to: Graduate Student Services, 114 West David Boyd Hall, Baton Rouge, LA 70803. These paper documents are stored electronically and departments have access to all materials submitted by and/or on behalf of a student applying to graduate study.

Applicants must adhere to the application deadlines established by the Graduate School. Once an application is complete, applications for admission are evaluated by the department. The faculty review deadlines can be found on the graduate section of the department website (cee.lsu.edu). Applications for the summer term are strongly discouraged. International students are strongly encouraged to apply earlier than established deadlines to allow sufficient time for application review and processing of I-20 paperwork.

The LSU Graduate School requires that students submit directly to its office the following items: official transcripts (along with an English translation version for non-English speaking universities) from each and every institution attended, official GRE scores (sent directly from ETS to the LSU Graduate School code 6373) and international students whose native language is not English must also submit an official TOEFL, IELTS, or PTE score.

In addition to the documents and scores required by the LSU Graduate School, the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering requires applicants to submit the following items: three letters of recommendation (no form required), and a statement of purpose. Also, applicants are encouraged (but not required) to submit a resumé. A writing sample is not required by our department but may be submitted if the applicant so desires. All of these additional items should be submitted electronically through the Graduate School’s admission system. Direct mailing of these items is discouraged.

Please note that meeting the minimum admission requirements established by the Graduate School does not necessarily ensure acceptance into the department’s graduate program. The departmental faculty reviews each applicant’s record to assess potential success at the graduate level, taking into consideration GRE scores, undergraduate and graduate preparation and grade-point averages, letters of recommendation, TOEFL, IELTS, or PTE scores (for international applicants), and any other supplementary information provided by the applicant. When all admission requirements are met, the faculty may recommend regular admission. If an applicant does not meet all requirements, he or she may be admitted provisionally. Applicants must have GRE score of 300 minimum (1100 on the old GRE scoring scale) for regular admission and 294 minimum (1000 on the old GRE scoring scale) for probationary admission to our graduate program. For the TOEFL, applicants must have a score of at least 550 on the paper-based test, a 213 on the computer-based test, or a 79 on the Internet-based test, or an IELTS score of 6.5, or a PTE score of at least 59; a TOEFL or IELTS score equivalent to 575 is required to be eligible for financial assistance.

Financial Assistance

Financial assistance is available to select students. For the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering Graduate Program, financial assistance is primarily available in the form of graduate research or teaching assistantships. Amounts of stipends for research and teaching assistants vary from year to year, and awardees are determined during the admission review process. Thus, it is important that all application materials be submitted in accordance with the LSU Graduate School and department deadlines. Assistantships at LSU are competitive with those of other large state universities. Many assistantships qualify the student for waiver of all in-state and out-of-state fees except for university fees.

Graduate Faculty

(check current listings by department by clicking this link)

Murad Yusuf Abu-Farsakh (3F) • Geosynthetic reinforcement of soils, subgrades, and base materials; Advanced in situ testing to evaluate soil properties; Numerical modeling of geotechnical and pavement engineering problems; Analysis, design, instrumentation, testing and LRFD calibration of deep foundations.
Donald Dean Adrian (EM) • Hydrology, mathematical modeling, wetlands, groundwater resources, environmental engineering
Aly Moussad Aly Sayed (6A) • Experimental/Computational multiscale/multiphysics assessment of wind, rain, and wave impact on structures, performance and resiliency enhancement of new and existing infrastructure for wind, waves, and earthquakes
Michele Barbato (M) • Structural engineering and dynamics, modeling/analysis of structural and geotechnical systems and stochastic process, structural retrofitting using fiber reinforced polymers, earthquake engineering, random vibration theory, computational reliability analysis
Chunsheng Cai (M) • Bridge engineering, prestressed concrete, wind engineering, structural dynamics, structural performance evaluation and rehabilitation
Qin Jim Chen (M) • Coastal engineering, prediction of storm surge and ocean waves, numerical modeling of coastal processes, nearshore circulation and sediment transport, design of coastal structures  
Shengli Chen (6A) • Theoretical and computational geomechanics, pile foundation and soil structure interaction, poromechanics and constitutive modeling of geomaterials, hydraulic fracturing
William David Constant (M) • Transport and fate of hazardous substances, waste site remediation, contaminated sediments, natural attenuation
Zhi-Qiang Deng (M) • Environmental fluid mechanics, environmental hydrology, river engineeringNavid H Jafari (6A) • soil mechanics and behavior, coastal and riverine protection infrastructure, erosion control, coastal restoration, subsidence, earth and man-made embankment stability, transient and unsaturated fluid flow, waste containment systems, geosynthetics, transportation and environmental geotechnics
Mostafa A. Elseifi (M) • Pavement modeling and design, field and laboratory characterization of asphalt mixtures
Vijaya K. Gopu (EM) • Structural engineering and structural mechanics
Maria Teresa Gutierrez-Wing (3F) • Bioplastics, nanomaterials for environmental applications, microalgal cultures (modeling, bioproducts, biofuels), aquaculture, water quality                                            
Scott C. Hagen (M) • Coastal engineering & hydroscience, tide, wind-wave and hurricane storm surge modeling, coastal dynamics of sea level rise, biogeodynamic modeling

Sherif Ishak (M) • Traffic operation and control, traffic safety, intelligent transportation systems, human factors, and simulation

Navid H Jafari (6A) • soil mechanics and behavior, coastal and riverine protection infrastructure, erosion control, coastal restoration, subsidence, earth and man-made embankment stability, transient and unsaturated fluid flow, waste containment systems, geosynthetics, transportation and environmental geotechnics

Jong Won Jung (6A) • Energy geotechnical engineering, sustainable use of engineering geo-material, sensor application to geo-engineering, and development of numerical tools
Ronald F. Malone (EM) • Recirculating aquaculture, eutrophication, water quality modeling, wastewater treatment
John B. Metcalf (EM) • Accelerated pavement testing, low-cost roads, non-standard materials, pavement design and quality control
William M. Moe (M) • Environmental Engineering, biological waste treatment, biofilm processes, sequencing batch reactors, bioremediation, Air pollution control
Louay N. Mohammad (M) • Fundamental characterization of transportation materials, flexible pavement design and analysis, pavement instrumentation, computational and experimental mechanics
Ayman M. Okeil (M) • Bridge engineering, structural reliability, behavior of concrete structures, structural strengthening using composite materials, earthquake engineering                                                       
Celalettin Ozdemir (6A) • Coastal and fluvial sediment transport, multiphase flow modeling, environmental fluid mechanics, turbulent and transitional flows
John H. Pardue (M) • Biological remediation, wetlands, environmental chemistry, fate and transport of contaminants, environmental engineering
Roger K. Seals (EM) • Geotechnical engineering, use and recycling of industrial by-product materials
Vijay P. Singh (EM) • Surface and subsurface hydrology, stochastic and mathematical modeling, irrigation hydraulics, entropy

Chao Sun (6A) • Structural dynamics and vibration control, hydrodynamics, fluid structure interaction, coupled dynamics of offshore floating wind turbines, multi-hazard mitigation for coastal and offshore structures, damage diagnosis and prognosis, energy harvesting
Frank Tsung-Chen Tsai (M) • Groundwater hydrology/hydraulics, contaminant fate and transport in subsurface, inverse problems, aquifer heterogeneity characterization, geostatistics, water resources systems management
Mehmet T. Tumay (EM) • Geotechnical engineering, in situ testing, soil reinforcement and improvement
George Z. Voyiadjis (M) • Multiscale modeling and simulation of material behavior and structures, microstructural characterization of materials, nanomechanics, inelastic behavior of materials, damage mechanics, dynamic failure of materials, computational mechanics, composite materials, thin films and MEMS, refined theory of plate and shells
Clinton S. Willson (M) • Environmental fluid mechanics, Physical and numerical modeling of river hydrodynamics and sediment transport, high-resolution X-ray CT, multiphase flow in porous media
Chester G. Wilmot (M) • Emergency evacuation travel demand estimation, road safety research, travel survey methodology, transferability of travel demand models, prioritization procedures, and air quality research
Paul B. Wolshon (M) • Geometric highway design and traffic safety, traffic engineering and analysis, major event and emergency transportation management and operations
Zhong Wu (3F) • Accelerated pavement testing
Hongliang Zhang (6A) • Air quality, air pollution simulation and measurement, source apportionment, particulate matter, ozone, and aerosol-meteorology-climate interactions.

The departmental-level academic course plan for each student will be developed in consultation with and approved by the student’s graduate advisory committee. The master’s committee will include the student’s major advisor and at least two additional members of the graduate faculty, while the PhD committee will include the student’s major advisor and two additional members of the graduate faculty with an additional committee member (“dean’s representative”) appointed by the Graduate School. More details about graduate committee formation can be found on the department graduate program website.

Programs

• Civil Engineering, Ph.D.

• Coastal and Ecological Engineering, M.S.

• Civil Engineering, M.S.CE