Alumni, students, faculty, staff and friends are invited to join us for our Homecoming Tailgate. The festivities begin three hours before kickoff. More details at the link below.

Greetings from Clemson University, where it is always a beautiful day! The School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences is flourishing. After just three years, our civil and environmental engineering rankings are trending upward!  We also now have unified bylaws, tenure/promotion/reappointment guidelines, faculty evaluation criteria and metrics, and graduate policies and procedures.

These governing documents, standard in any academic organization like ours, stand as a testament to the collaboration between the two departments that came together in August 2021 to form the school, the Glenn Department of Civil Engineering and the Department of Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences.

Since forming the school, we have also added four new strategic hires, among them Debora F. Rodrigues, who was just announced as the new chair of the Department of Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences.

I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting the school’s alumni while crisscrossing the Southeast with the Roar & Soar Tour, designed to socialize the school’s formation and principles. Please consider attending our Homecoming Tailgate on Saturday, September 28 — Clemson plays Stanford. A registration form is linked above.

I invite you to read the highlights from our faculty, staff, and students in the stories embedded herein. If you missed it last year, I also invite you to watch a 2-minute video about our school’s beginnings: School Guiding Principles. We are laser-focused on Things that Matter to society, such as society’s grand challenges related to infrastructure and the environment.

Thank you for taking some time to learn about the latest developments in our new school. I look forward to a productive fall and continuing to deepen relationships with our alumni and friends.

Go Tigers!

Jesus M. de la Garza
Director, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences

Greetings from Clemson. Much has happened in EEES since our last communication. Perhaps most notably, we celebrated the life of Tom Keinath at a memorial service held at the Madren Center on May 18. Approximately 120 family members, friends and colleagues attended and heard moving remembrances, including those of Tom’s wife Karen and his son Michael. We have established the Keinath Professorship in Environmental Engineering and Science as a way to preserve Tom’s amazing legacy at Clemson University. Please consider making a gift as we endeavor to reach an initial amount of $500,000.

The Department continued to enjoy success in the acquisition of major research grants (e.g., from the Department of Energy) and high-impact research on topics spanning climate change and the treatment of PFAS, the so-called forever chemicals. Faculty member and University Vice President for Research Tanju Karanfil was selected as an editor for Water Research, one of the premier journals in Environmental Engineering and Science. And our faculty and students continued to collect an array of awards. Thanks in part to the ongoing support of our alums, EEES is on an excellent trajectory.

After ten years of service as Chair of EEES, I am stepping down at the end of this summer. I plan to stay on the faculty through the 2025-2026 academic year. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve as Chair over an eventful period of growth, change and achievements. 

David L. Freedman
Chair, Department of Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences

As we embark on the Fall semester of the 2024-25 academic year, I extend our deepest gratitude to our alumni and industry partners whose unwavering support has been instrumental in our successes. Thanks to their generosity, 36 students participated in the ASCE regionals, securing 1st place overall at the Carolina’s Symposium. Our concrete canoe team fought hard and took second to UNCC, but bringing home the sportsmanship award was a highlight — Go Tigers!

Our surveying team excelled, placing first at regionals and achieving 2nd place overall at Nationals at BYU in Utah. The enthusiasm for ASCE within our Department is palpable, and Posillico’s donation of a new canoe trailer and Brasfield & Gorrie’s contribution of company service days have been pivotal in advancing our program and supporting our experiential learning lab renovations. We have lots more work to do, so check out our giving page for more information on how you can help.

All this was underscored by a successful ABET Accreditation visit, with our CE report selected as a model for the ABET Annual Conference. We honored former SCDOT Secretary Christy Hall as the 2024 Glenn Department of Civil Engineering Distinguished Alumni at our honors and awards ceremony, and several faculty members were recognized for their outstanding teaching and research. We eagerly anticipate hosting more industry and alumni partners at Industry Day 3.0 on October 10 and throughout the year in our newly launched Arch Initiatives curriculum. This spring, our students built and tested six-foot wooden trusses, gaining valuable hands-on experience. You can watch the video here.

Finally, we are thrilled to host the 2025 ASCE Carolina’s Student Symposium and invite everyone to participate as volunteers, judges and sponsors. Please read on for more details about these stories, and check out our industry partners page for more opportunities to connect with us.

Jennifer H. Ogle
Chair, Glenn Department of Civil Engineering

The School of Civil and Environmental Engineering & Earth Sciences Newsletter is published by the School and the PROMO Office in Clemson University’s College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences.

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