Research Areas
Our Research
In the Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering at Stevens, our faculty and students facilitate research in fields such as smart infrastructure, forecasting, experimental ship design, new environmental technologies and sustainability. We've categorized these research applications into four areas of interest:
Urban infrastructure systems
Environmental systems and sustainability
Coastal and oceanic systems
Cross-Disciplinary Research
Urban Infrastructure Systems
Building durable and adaptive structures and modernizing transportation networks and water and sewer systems present challenges for future planners, engineers, and developers. These challenges are exacerbated in urban environments due to growing populations that stress the use of these systems. Our research in this focus area addresses issues related to the design, construction, and monitoring of infrastructure systems through the development of new technologies related to the implementation of:
Combination of sensing networks and machine learning and analytics to enhance real time and long-term infrastructure deterioration prediction and maintenance decision making.
Decentralized and infrastructure-less systems for proactive disaster management and emergency operations in smart cities.
Resilient, sustainable and durable materials.
Geo Risk modeling for subsurface infrastructure.
A combination of earth observation using in situ and space borne sensors along with other sources like citizen science and IoT to improve the modeling of hydrological and meteorological events with a focus on urban/coastal areas.
Cross-disciplinary research is covered through the coastal resilience and construction research programs in the coastal and oceanic systems focus area, and through groundwater modeling in the sustainable environmental systems focus area.
Urban Infrastructure Systems Researchers
Environmental Systems and Sustainability
Polluted air, contaminated water supply, and infertile soil pose serious risks to human health and water, food and energy resources. Our research in this focus area aims at mitigating these problems through:
Quantification of physicochemical processes that determine the fate of contaminants in soil, water, and sediments.
Physicochemical and biological treatment of pollutants in waste streams prior to disposal in sensitive environmental receptors.
Valorization of industrial wastes through resource recovery and reuse.
Nano-remediation and treatment technologies of contaminated sites.
Assessment of ecological and human health risk in relation to environmental decision-making.
Green technology development for environmental protection.
Environmental Systems and Sustainability Researchers
Coastal and Oceanic Systems
Human well-being is very much connected to oceans, which regulate the climate, provide food, water and energy, support transport and trade, and are used for waste disposal. Our research in this focus area supports development of technologies related to enhancing the resilience of coastal communities and design of advanced marine systems including:
Combination of physics-based simulations with machine learning to support prediction of low-probability/high-consequence coastal flooding.
Development of broadly applicable approaches for flood modeling, risk assessment, climate change analysis, and benefit-cost analysis for flood risk reduction scenarios.
Development of numerical models to support and improve coastal planning and design.
Development of technologies to monitor coastal changes, improve design of shore protection technologies (living shorelines).
Leveraging progress in earth observation using in-situ and space-borne sensors along with other sources like citizen science and IoT to improve the modeling of hydrological and meteorological events with a focus on urban/coastal areas.
Development of innovative technologies to design and deploy wave energy converters.
Development of experimental techniques and computational tools to design, verify and validate hydrodynamics of advanced surface and subsurface vessels.
Stabilization and control of supercavitating bodies.
Dynamics and control of unmanned underwater vehicles.
Development of bio-inspired swimming robots.
Development of underwater vector sensing.
Oceanic and Coastal Systems Researchers
Applied Cross-disciplinary Research
Offshore Wind Farm Research at Stevens
Stevens Institute of Technology’s Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering and Davidson Laboratory support the deployment and monitoring of offshore wind farms in a variety of ways, including education, workforce development and research in the fields of ocean, coastal, structural and foundation engineering, marine systems, computational fluid dynamics, computational structural mechanics, remote sensing, green engineering, sustainability management and coastal resilience.
The department offers undergraduate and graduate degrees, certificates and specialized courses in naval, coastal and ocean engineering.
Graduate Programs and Certificates >
Cross-Disciplinary Projects
Learn about some of our cross-disciplinary projects related to offshore wind farms below.