The Urban Collaboratory brings together faculty and students in collaboration with city leaders and residents to identify and address emerging challenges in 21st-century urban centers. Interdisciplinary teams with members from different Colleges across campus work together in a convergent research approach emphasizing societal impact.
The Urban Collaboratory draws together a community of scholars from across the University of Michigan campus to collaborate directly with city stakeholders to address targeted challenges that impact the health and livability of urban centers.
The Collaboratory provides a “front door” to communities trying to connect with U-M. Faculty and student teams work directly with city stakeholders to identify community challenges, develop an effective approach, identify funding sources and then implement solutions guided by novel urban design methods. Collaboratory projects integrate information, communication technology, and sensor technologies in a comprehensive fashion to observe, manage, and control urban processes—all with the goal of improving residents’ overall quality of life.
Current Collaboratory projects include removing phosphorus from water in Detroit, helping seniors age in place in Ypsilanti, improving public transportation in Benton Harbor, and much more.
“Partnerships with the Urban Collaboratory will unlock the power of interdisciplinary research and implementation through design integration with our city partners.”
Associate Professor of Architecture and Associate Dean for Research at the Taubman College of Architecture Urban Planning, and Urban Collaboratory Co-Director
Co-Founder
Professor, Environmental and Water Resources
Dr. Daigger is currently Professor of Engineering Practice at the University of Michigan and President and Founder of One Water Solutions, LLC, a water engineering and innovation firm. He previously served as Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for CH2M HILL where he was employed for 35 years, as well as Professor and Chair of Environmental Systems Engineering at Clemson University. Actively engaged in the water profession through major projects, and as author or co-author of more than 100 technical papers, four books, and several technical manuals, he contributes to significantly advance practice within the water profession. He has advised many of the major cites of the world, including New York, Los Angles, San Francisco, Singapore, Hong Kong, Istanbul, and Beijing, and is currently a member of the Asian Development Bank Water Advisory Group. Deeply involved in professional activities, he is currently co-Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Water Environment and Reuse Foundation (WE&RF), and a Past President of the International Water Association (IWA). The recipient of numerous awards, including the Kappe, Freese, and Feng lectures and the Harrison Prescott Eddy, Morgan, and the Gascoigne Awards, he is a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), a Distinguished Fellow of IWA, and a Fellow of the Water Environment Federation (WEF). A member of a number of professional societies, Dr. Daigger is also a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineers.
+ Optimizing Phosphorus Removal
+ Protecting Public Health with Improved Water Service
+ Artificial Intelligence and Water Resource Recovery Facilities
Co-Founder
Borchardt and Glysson Collegiate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Dr. Nancy G. Love is the Borchardt and Glysson Collegiate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan. She previously served as chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and as Associate Dean in the University of Michigan’s Rackham School of Graduate Studies. She previously taught at Virginia Tech.
Dr. Love’s research interests include water quality and environmental biotechnology. Specifically, she studies the fate of toxins and pharmaceuticals in wastewater, as well as the technologies that can be used to remove these chemical stressors.
Dr. Love holds a PhD in Environmental Systems Engineering from Clemson University (1994) and both a Masters of Science (1986) and a Bachelors of Science (1984) in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
+ Creating Fertilizer from Urine
+ Point of Use Water Filters: A Grassroots Train-the-Trainer Program
Co-Founder
Donald Malloure Department Chair, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Jerome P. Lynch, Ph.D. has been a member of the faculty at the University of Michigan since 2003. He is currently the Donald Malloure Department Chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. In addition to his work as the Director of the U-M Urban Collaboratory Initiative, he is also the Director of the Laboratory for Intelligent Systems Technology (LIST).
Dr. Lynch’s work focuses on the boundary between traditional civil engineering and related engineering disciplines (such as electrical engineering, computing science, and material science), converting infrastructure systems into more intelligent and reactive systems through the integration of sensing, computing, and actuation technologies. These cyber-physcial systems (CPS) greatly enhance performance while rendering them more resilient against natural and man-made hazards.
Dr. Lynch completed his graduate studies at Stanford University where he received his Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering in 2002, M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering in 1998, and M.S. in Electrical Engineering in 2003. Prior to attending Stanford, Dr. Lynch received his B.E. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the Cooper Union in New York City. He has co-authored one book and over 200 articles in peer reviewed journal and conferences. Dr. Lynch has been awarded the 2005 ONR Young Investigator Award, 2009 NSF CAREER Award, 2009 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), 2012 ASCE EMI Leonardo da Vinci Award and 2014 ASCE Huber Award.
Associate Professor of Architecture
Associate Dean for Creative Practice
Geoffrey Thün is Associate Professor of Architecture and Associate Dean for Research and Creative Practice at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan where he teaches design studios, courses in urban systems, site operations and material systems. He is a founding partner in the research-based practice RVTR. He holds an M.UD from the University of Toronto, and a Professional BArch and BES from the University of Waterloo.
Thün’s work ranges in scale from that of the regional territory and the city, to high performance buildings, to full-scale prototype-based work exploring responsive and kinetic envelopes that mediate energy, atmosphere, and social space. These operational scales are tied together through a methodology that entails a complex systems approach; one that assembles around each project a multiplicity of agents, forces and contexts and leverages these multivalent and sometimes contradictory agents towards integrated and synthetic design work. His academic research has attracted external funding from the U.S. Department of Energy / National Renewable Energy Laboratory (DOE/NREL), U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Research Council of Canada (NRCan), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) and Ford Motor Company. Geoffrey is also a co-founder of the Urban Collaboratory.
+ Transforming Shipping Containers into Chronic Care Clinics
Managing Director
Mr. Wolf serves as Managing Director of the University of Michigan’s Urban Collaboratory working to connect University of Michigan “smart city” research, community needs and funding opportunities to deploy impactful projects addressing targeted challenges that improve the livability of communities. Mr. Wolf brings a wealth of experience to the Collaboratory and has served in a number of senior management positions at large multinational consulting firms. In that capacity, he has directed a wide variety of technical disciplines, projects and programs providing consulting services to governments, corporations, foundations, institutions and non-profits at locations globally. Mr. Wolf is a Professional Engineer licensed in several states, and holds a BS in Civil Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from the University of Missouri at St. Louis.
Director, Center for Smart Infrastructure
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Professor of Entrepreneurship and Strategy
Professor of Environment and Sustainability
Dr. Adriaens is Professor of Environmental Engineering, Finance and Entrepreneurship at The University of Michigan, where he serves as the Director of the Center for Smart Infrastructure Finance. His work bridges the academic and commercial space with research and teaching foci on business and financing models in the data economy relevant to clean technologies, green investment strategies, and infrastructure finance. He holds management positions in two fintech companies: Equarius Risk Analytics, focused on water risk indexing for securities, and Corymbus Asset Management, focused on analytics of unstructured data for business model design and valuation. He serves as strategic and financial advisor to the Great Lakes Blue Growth Fund, a multi-asset impact investment vehicle for the bi-lateral Region, focused on sustainable water resource management. He has served as Distinguished Professor of Finance and Entrepreneurship at the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy and at Sichuan University. He is a member by eminence of the American Academy of Environmental Engineering, and a member of the Royal Belgian Academy of Arts and Sciences, and currently chairs the Foundation of the American Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors.
Director of Graduate Studies in Chemistry
Professor of Chemistry
Diana Aga, Henry M. Woodburn Professor of Chemistry at the University at Buffalo (UB), received her BS in Agricultural Chemistry degree from the University of the Philippines at Los Baños in 1988, and her Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry degree from Kansas University (KU) in 1995. She subsequently moved to Zurich, Switzerland in 1996 to conduct postdoctoral research at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG). Dr. Aga is a professor in Analytical and Environmental Chemistry at UB, with expertise in the development of sensitive analytical methods for the detection of chemical contaminants in the environment. Her research program centers on investigating the environmental chemistry, biological and ecological effects, and mitigation strategies of legacy and emerging contaminants in the environment, such as antimicrobials, persistent organic pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, endocrine disrupting chemicals, and engineered nanomaterials. Dr. Aga’s recent work showing bioaccumulation of antidepressants in brains of fish from the Great Lakes has been highlighted in the national and international newspapers because of their impact on the biodiversity of fish population in one of the world’s most important fresh water body. Dr. Aga has also demonstrated the widespread occurrence of antibiotics in the environment due to wastewater discharges and land-application of animal manure, resulting in promotion and spread of antibiotic resistance in non-clinical environments. She serves as editor of the Journal of Hazardous Materials, an Elsevier international journal, which publishes research papers on environmental control, risk assessment, impact and management.
Director of the Master of Urban Design
Associate Professor of Architecture and Urban and Regional Planning
María Arquero de Alarcón is an Associate Professor of Architecture and Urban and Regional Planning and Director of the Master of Urban Design at the University of Michigan Taubman College. Operating at the intersection of architecture, landscape, and urbanism, her work interrogates the agency of design promoting cultural and environmental values in the agenda of urban sustainability. Her work is published in the edited volumes The Third Coast Atlas: Prelude to a Plan of the Great Lakes Region and Mapping Detroit: Land, Community, and Shaping a City, the Michigan Journal of Sustainability, Architect Magazine’s “Next Progressives,” PLOT, Green and Building Design, International Journal of Transportation, Journal of Transportation Planning and Technology, UHF and New Mobility. She holds a professional degree in Architecture and Urbanism from the Madrid Polytechnic University, a master of Advanced Studies in Landscape Architecture from the E.T.H. Zurich, and a master of Landscape Architecture in Urban Design from the G.S.D., Harvard University. She is a Spanish registered architect, an A.S.L.A. and an A.P.A. member.
María is founding partner of MAde Studio, a research-based, collaborative design practice with projects that articulate a range of design strategies operating across geographies, scales and disciplinary sensibilities. Through the combination of grant-funded research initiatives, urban design experimentation, and small, site-specific built interventions, MAde Studio’s work focuses in the advancement of design values integrating the knowledge co-generated with local partners, collaborators and residents. MAde Studio has garnered recognition with four AIA Michigan Design Awards for Playful Horizons, A Dozen Playgrounds, Eastside Recreation Center and Liquid Planning Detroit, an ACSA Faculty Design Award for Liquid Planning Detroit, and two Boston Society of Architects Citations. The work has been exhibited in the 2017-2018 Shenzhen-Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, and academic institutions like the University of Tennessee, the University of Minnesota and the University of Michigan.
Associate Professor
Dr. Adda Athanasopoulos-Zekkos holds a joint BS/MSc in Civil Engineering from the University of Patras, Greece (2003), and received her MSc (2004) and PhD (2008) Degrees in Geotechnical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. In 2004 she received the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship for her PhD research. She joined the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2008 as an Assistant Professor, and is now an Associate Professor since 2015.
She has received the NSF CAREER award (2013), the 2014 Faculty Excellence Award by the CEE Dept at the Univ. of Michigan, the 2015 ASCE Arthur Casagrande Award and the 2015 ASCE Thomas Middlebrooks Award, and more recently the 2016 Chi Epsilon (XE) Outstanding Teaching Award.
Her research focuses on soil liquefaction, seismic slope stability, and flood protection systems and soil structures under extreme loading like hurricanes and earthquakes and new technologies and methodologies to design, monitor and reinforce them. Her work recently has focused on investigating the dynamic response of gravelly soils by integrating unique laboratory testing and advanced field testing, as well as Discrete Element Method numerical modeling.
Assistant Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Michigan Society Fellow, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Dr. Tierra Bills is an Assistant Professor and Michigan Society Fellow in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Michigan. She joined the University of Michigan in 2016 after spending 3 years as a Research Scientist at IBM Research Africa. Much of Dr. Bills’ current research focuses on investigating the social impacts of transportation projects. She develops activity-based travel-demand models to investigate individual and household-level transportation-equity effects, for the purpose of designing transportation systems that will provide more equitable returns to society. Her latest project aims to improve the ability to represent the distinct travel needs of transport disadvantaged communities in Benton Harbor, Michigan, using mixed modes of sampling and travel data collection. Previously, her work focused on leveraging emerging data sources for various travel modeling applications.
Dr. Bills research interests generally include discrete choice analysis and behavioral modeling, transportation planning, and emerging data sources in transportation modeling. Dr. Bills holds a B.S in Civil Engineering Technology from Florida A&M University (‘08), and M.S (’09) and PhD (’13) degrees in Transportation Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.
Professor of Human Genetics
Interim Chair of Human Genetics
Dr. David Burke is a faculty member in the Department of Human Genetics at the University of Michigan School of Medicine. His work has focused on interdisciplinary research that integrates mammalian and human genetics with advances in engineering. Recently, this effort is attempting to bring low cost health technologies to clinics and clinical researchers, with a focus is on developing technologies that are readily manufactured, robust, and can be distributed to underserved populations. He currently serves as Interim Chair of the Department.
+ Transforming Shipping Containers into Chronic Care Clinics
Executive Director of MCubed and Research Innovation
Professor of Chemical Engineering
Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Prof. Mark A. Burns is the Executive Director of Mcubed and Research Innovation in the Office of the Vice President for Research and the T. C. Chang Professor of Engineering. He joined the University of Michigan in 1990 after teaching at the University of Massachusetts for 4 years. He obtained his MS and PhD degrees in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and his BS degree from the University of Notre Dame.
Prof. Burns has over 300 publications, patents, and presentations. He is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. He has won numerous awards including the Food, Pharmaceutical, and Bioengineering Division Award from AIChE, and both a Research Excellence Award and a Teaching Excellence Award from the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan. He was the founding director of an Institutional Training Grant from the National Institutes of Health on Microfluidics in Biomedical Sciences, a program that involves over 40 faculty from 14 different departments from across the University and is the only one of its kind in the country. Prof. Burns is also the Executive Director and one of the co-founders of the innovative seed-funding program at Michigan called Mcubed. The program has funded over 450 faculty and student teams, and results from these teams has generated over $100M of external research funding.
+ Transforming Shipping Containers into Chronic Care Clinics
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Avery H. Demond is a professor in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at the University of Michigan. She holds a B.A. in Biology from Williams College (Williamstown, MA) (1977), a B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1980 and 1982), and a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Stanford University (1988). She was instrumental in developing the BSE in Environmental Engineering degree program at UM and currently serves as its chair.
Dr. Demond’s research is in the area of hazardous waste and the rehabilitation of contaminated industrial properties; she has published on a variety of topics including the effect of contamination on soil transport properties, the leaching of contaminants from aging infrastructure into the water supply, and the impact of historic soil contamination on human health. She served as a coordinator of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Subsurface Science Program’s Multiphase Fluid Flow Subprogram for five years. Furthermore, she has served on a number of National Research Council boards and committees, including the Board on Engineering Education and the Committee for the Review of the DOE Environmental Restoration Priority System. She has received numerous awards for her service. She is a professional engineer, licensed in the State of Michigan.
Assistant Professor of Information
Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Tawanna is an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Information and holds a courtesy appointment with the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department. Tawanna earned her Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) from Carnegie Mellon University. She now leads the Social Innovations research group, an interdisciplinary group of individuals whose vision is to design, build, and enhance technologies to solve real-world problems affecting marginalized groups and individuals primarily in the U.S. Our projects aim to address unemployment, environmental sustainability, and technical literacy by fostering social and sociotechnical capital within these communities.
Chair of Epidemiology
Professor of Epidemiology
Dr. Eisenberg is the John G. Searle endowed Chair and Professor of Epidemiology in the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan. Dr. Eisenberg received his PhD in Bioengineering in the joint University of California, Berkeley/University of California, San Francisco program, and an MPH from the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Eisenberg studies infectious disease epidemiology with a focus on waterborne and vectorborne diseases. His broad research interests, global and domestic, integrate theoretical work in developing disease transmission models and empirical work in designing and conducting epidemiology studies. He is particularly interested in the environmental determinants of infectious diseases.
Dr. Eisenberg has a long-standing research platform in northern coastal Ecuador, examining how changes in the social and natural environments, mediated by road construction, affect the epidemiology of pathogens. Specific studies focus on enteric pathogens, antimicrobial resistance, the microbiome and dengue. He is also principal investigator on an NIH funded grant to model the environmental spread of infectious pathogens through the Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study (MIDAS) to examine mechanisms of transmission and potential intervention and control of enteric pathogens. Dr. Eisenberg has collaborated in other geographical sites including Ethiopia, Israel, and Mexico. Dr. Eisenberg’s domestic interest is focused on the development of a new microbial risk assessment framework that shifts the traditional approach of individual-based static models to population-based dynamic models. He has collaborated with the World Health Organization (WHO), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Dr. Eisenberg’s work, locally and abroad, is highly collaborative and interdisciplinary.
Principal and Founder, Mohammed Ettouney, LLC
Dr. Ettouney has been in the field of consulting engineering for over 49 years. He received his Sc.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with major in Engineering Mechanics and minors in Applied Mathematics and Hydrodynamics.
He has practical, research and teaching experience in several fields, including finite elements / boundary elements, multihazards considerations, risk management, resilience management (he coined the ‘resilience management’ expression while leading a project for a major state organization in 2013-2014), seismic analysis and design, vibration of solids and fluids (low, medium, and high frequencies), structural health and structural health monitoring, blast, and progressive collapse. He developed numerous methods, concepts, theories, and practical solutions over the years. These include: objective methods for quantifying multihazards effects and decision, risk / resilience methods for lower limit states, post disaster assessment tools, theory and methods of progressive collapse, two theories for multihazards considerations, multihazards bridge guide, fragilities of emergency, evacuation, rescue and recovery (EERR) for building systems, economic theory of inspection, probabilistic boundary element methods, and scale independent elements (for medium and high frequency ranges).
His current efforts includes development of several structural modeling methods for improving structural redundancy using perturbation eigenvalue technique, objective utilization of lower limit states in practical structural health monitoring applications, developing objective techniques for efficient resilience management of infrastructures, and studies relating to effects of climate change on civil infrastructure performance and how to optimize decision making processes to meet the climate change threats.
He produced over 400+ publications, 6 book chapters, and 8 books. His books cover varying, yet pioneering, areas of civil infrastructure applications such as Multihazards Considerations in Civil Infrastructures, Risk Management in Civil Infrastructures, a two volumes set on Infrastructure Health in Civil Engineering (All published by CRC Press), and Building Security Rating System (Published by American Society of Civil Engineers)
He received numerous awards and honors including Architectural Engineering Institute (AEI) fellow (2005), American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) Project of the year award (2008), NJ inventors Hall of Fame for developing Theory of Progressive Collapse (2008), NY-ASCE MET Section Life Time achievement award (2008), and Distinguished ASCE member (2011). His two volumes book set on Infrastructure Health in Civil Engineering won the Journal of Bridge Engineering Book Award (2013). He received Anchin Innovation Award for developing risk and resilience methodologies (buildings, mass transit stations, and tunnels) for US-DHS (2014). The National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) presented him their Honors Award (2015).
He is a past president of (AEI). He served on several professional boards, including AEI board of governors, Building Security Council (BSC) board of directors, NIBS Journal of Advanced Materials Editorial board, and Multihazards Mitigation Council (MMC) board. He served as a member and chair of numerous technical committees and advisory boards of ASCE, SEI, AEI, BSC, AISC, ACI, US-DHS, ATC, and ASNT. He is the first / current chair of Engineering Mechanics Institute (EMI) Objective Resilience Committee (ORC). His accomplishments while serving those professional organizations include co-developing of AEI student competition, co-developing BSC security ratings, chairing AEI national conferences (2006 and 2008), participating in developing several professional standards, design codes and guidelines including several NEHRP provisions, FEMA and US-DHS guidelines, several editions of ASCE-7, seismic design of wood tanks, and the first New York City seismic design code (1995), and organizing and chairing numerous workshops, seminars, and symposia. He is a frequent keynote invitee both nationally and internationally.
His current activities include several civil infrastructure-related projects, including progressive collapse of steel bridges. He is concurrently authoring several books including: Objective Resilience Manual of Practice, Editor: 30 chapters / 39 contributing authors (Expected late 2019 by ASCE Press), Progressive Collapse of Structures: From Theory to Practice (First Author, expected early 2020 by CRC Press) and Climate Change Effects on Civil Infrastructures (Solo author, expected late 2019 by CRC Press).
Associate Dean for Research and Policy Engagement
Jack L. Walker, Jr. Collegiate Professor of Public Policy
Professor of Public Policy
Professor of Political Science
Research Associate, Center for Political Studies
Elisabeth R. Gerber is the Jack L. Walker Jr. Collegiate Professor of Public Policy at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, Associate Dean for Research and Policy Engagement, Professor of Political Science (by courtesy), and Research Associate at the Center for Political Studies, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. Her research focuses on urban, regional and metropolitan policy especially in the areas of: transportation and water policy; climate adaptation; and community, workforce, and economic development. Gerber is co-PI of the Detroit Metropolitan Area Communities Study. She is the author of The Populist Paradox: Interest Group Influence and the Promise of Direct Legislation (1999), co-author of Stealing the Initiative: How State Government Responds to Direct Democracy (2000), and co-editor of Voting at the Political Fault Line: California’s Experiment with the Blanket Primary (2001) and Michigan at the Millennium (2003). Recent publications include “Motivational Crowding in Sustainable Development Interventions” with Arun Agrawal and Ashwini Chhatre (APSR 2015, 109(3): 470-487) and “Spatial Dynamics of Vertical and Horizontal Intergovernmental Collaboration” with Carolyn Loh (JUA 2015, 37(3): 270-288). Gerber was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012 and currently serves as vice-chair of the Regional Transit Authority of Southeast Michigan. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan.
Assistant Professor of Urban Planning
Robert Goodspeed, PhD, AICP, is an Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. His research interest is in the use of new technology to improve the planning process, and involves mixed-methods studies of innovative urban planning practice, the use of GIS to develop novel methods and measurements, and theoretical analysis of sociotechnical practices like crowdfunding and smart cities. As a result of his scholarly and applied work in this area, he was named a Leading Thinker in Urban Planning and Technology by the website Planetizen. He teaches graduate courses in geographic information systems (GIS), collaborative planning, and scenario planning. He holds a Ph.D. in urban and regional planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an M.C.P. from the University of Maryland, and a B.A. in history with high honors and high distinction from the University of Michigan. His dissertation, which examined the use of planning support systems in spatial planning, received the 2013 Donald Schön Award for Excellence in Learning from Practice from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. Prior to pursuing a Ph.D., Goodspeed worked as a research analyst at the Boston Metropolitan Area Planning Council, where he was involved in planning-related mapping, data analysis, and community indicators projects.
Co-Founder
Associate Professor, Industrial & Operations Engineering
Industrial and Operations Engineering Graduate Program Advisor
Seth Guikema is an Associate Professor in Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan with a joint appointment in Civil and Environmental Engineering. He is also a Professor II at the University of Stavanger (Norway) in Societal Safety and Risk Management as well as a Data Science Research Fellow at One Concern, Inc. He is the President Elect of the Society for Risk Analysis (2019) and will serve as President of SRA in 2020. His research is grounded in risk analysis, predictive data analytics, and complex systems modeling and analysis. While much of his research focuses on natural hazards impacting communities and infrastructure, he also works on modeling and better understanding the effects of repeated hazards on communities and how they evolve over time, modeling issues of equity in urban areas, climate resilience of small-holder farmers in Ethiopia, terrorism risk analysis, and human trafficking.
Associate Professor
Director, Michigan Sustainability Cases
Coordinator, Environmental Justice Certificate
Professor Hardin’s areas of interest and scientific study focus on the increasingly intertwined practices of health, environmental management, and corporate/community interactions in Africa and the U.S.A. She has directed case based research on environmental justice movements within the U.S., connecting them to the international Environmental Justice Atlas. She has also advised a team assessing groundwater and surface water resources across the African continent, and advising the Global Environment and Technology Foundation about how to make a better business case for water related investment by businesses in Africa. She teaches and mentors students interested in international environmental practice and policy, wildlife management, and the cultural politics of global health practice, especially as concerns water quality monitoring and protection. That work is presently focused with the REFRESCH initiative in the country of Gabon, one of the richest in water and wildlife on the entire African continent. She is building case based curricular tools for international Sustainability Science as Director of the Michigan Sustainability Cases, hosted on the open access Gala Platform. Rebecca also supports co-curricular opportunities for student work in environmental media such as the weekly environmental podcast and “blogcast” It’s Hot in Here, airing at noon on Fridays on WCBN FM Ann Arbor. Her book with Kamari Clarke, Transforming Ethnographic Knowledge explores the discipline of anthropology as a set of skills and tools for social change in sectors as different as business, biological conservation, conflict resolution, and biomedical care.
Assistant Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Branko Kerkez an assistant professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering department at the University of Michigan. His research interests include water, data, and sensors. He heads the Real-time Water Systems Lab, where his group is presently conducting fundamental research on “smart” water systems. Dr. Kerkez is the founder of Open-Storm.org, an open source consortium dedicated to freely sharing technologies and lessons for the sensing and control of water systems. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering, and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, all from UC Berkeley.
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Structural Engineering and Engineering Informatics
Kincho H. Law is currently Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University. His professional and research interests focus on computational and information science in engineering. His work has dealt with various aspects of computational engineering; high performance computing; sensing, monitoring and control of complex systems; legal and engineering informatics; enterprise integration; smart manufacturing; web services, cloud and Internet computing.
Prof. Law was the recipient of the ASCE Computing in Civil Engineering Award in 2011. He has received a number of best paper awards from ASCE, ASME, IEEE and Digital Government Society. He serves on the advisory board for a number of start-up companies on Data Analytics, IoT Platform for Manufacturing, Autonomous Vehicles, and others. Prof. Law was elected as Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and as Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2017.
Associate Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering
John L. Tishman Faculty Scholar of Civil and Environmental Engineering
SangHyun Lee is an Associate Professor and John L. Tishman Faculty Scholar of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan, and leads the Dynamic Project Management group. He is also Acting CEO of Kinetica. He received both his MSc and PhD from MIT, and his research aims to understand and manage construction dynamics and human-infrastructure interface through sensing, data analytics and computer simulation. He served as a board of governors in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Construction Institute, Chair of the ASCE Construction Research Council, and Chair of the ASCE Visualization, Information Modeling, and Simulation Committee. In addition, he is serving as the Specialty Editor for the ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, and as an Associate Editor for the ASCE Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering. He received the ASCE Daniel W. Halpin Award for Scholarship in Construction, ASCE Thomas Fitch Rowland Prize, the FIATCH CETI Outstanding Early Career Researcher Award, the Stephen G. Revay Award from the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering, CII Distinguished Professor Award, Tom Waters Award, and Henry Russel Award, the highest honor the University of Michigan bestows upon junior faculty, among many others as well as seven best paper awards including the 2014 ASCE Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering best paper award. He has over 170 peer-reviewed articles including 74 journal articles as well as 2 patents, 2 books and 1 start-up company.
James R. Rice Distinguished University Professor of Engineering
E. Benjamin Wylie Collegiate Professor of Civil Engineering
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
Professor of Macromolecular Science and Engineering
Dr. Victor Li is the James R. Rice Distinguished University Professor of Engineering, and the E.B. Wylie Collegiate Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His research interest is in multifunctional materials targeted at enhancing civil infrastructure sustainability and resiliency. He led the research team that invented Engineering Cementitious Composites, popularly known as “Bendable Concrete”. Professor Li was awarded the International Grand Prize for Innovation by the Construction Industry Council and the RILEM Life-time Achievement Award in 2016. He received the Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award in 2015 and the Distinguished Faculty Award in 2006 from the University of Michigan. In 2005, he received the Stephen S. Attwood award, the highest honor bestowed by the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan. In 2004, Professor Li was honored by the Technical University of Denmark with a “Doctor technics honoris causa” in recognition of his “outstanding, innovative contributions to materials research and engineering and providing our society and the construction industry with new, safe and sustainable building materials”. Professor Li is a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the World Innovation Forum, and the American Concrete Institute. His research and societal impacts have been featured in the CBS Evening News, CNN, the Discovery Channel, the Architectural Record, the American Ceramic Society, the Portland Cement Association, and the Forbes Magazine, amongst many other public media. Professor Li is named inventor on ten US patents.
Watch Victor Li testify to the Michigan House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation discussing the potential benefits of using bendable concrete on Michigan roads and bridges.
+ Bendable Concrete Utilized on a Bridge Deck (Engineered Cementitious Composite or ECC)
Associate Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning
Jen Maigret is an associate professor of architecture at the University of Michigan, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, where she teaches design studios and courses in sustainability and representation. She was a 2006-2008 Cynthia Weese Fellow at the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts, Washington University in Saint Louis, where she also held an assistant professor position. Maigret is a licensed architect in the State of Michigan and a principal at PLY+ architecture, urbanism and design.
Maigret holds degrees in Biology (B.A. Biology, Hartwick College and M.S. Evolutionary Biology and Ecology, University of Michigan) and Architecture (M.Arch, University of Michigan). Her educational and professional experience within the fields of biology and architecture inform her design expertise and approach to architecture as a component of broader environmental systems. Maigret was previously a partner in the trans-disciplinary, collaborative practice, MAde Studio where she contributed to projects ranging from regional green infrastructure analyses and oversaw the design and fabrication of architectural elements within public spaces.
Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Neda Masoud is an assistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of Michigan. She is the director of Next Generation Mobility Systems Lab, where she and her research group study innovative shared-use mobility solutions and their integration into the current transportation system. Dr. Masoud holds a Ph.D degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from University of California Irvine, an MS degree in Physics from University of Massachusetts, and a BS degree in Industrial Engineering from Sharif University of Technology.
Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Wayne State University
Dr. Shawn P. McElmurry is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Wayne State University in Detroit. He received his PhD in Environmental Engineering from Michigan State University and is a licensed Professional Engineer. Since joining Wayne State he has received significant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and National Science Foundation (NSF), and State of Michigan and published more than 30 peer-reviewed journal articles. Dr. McElmurry teaches graduate and undergraduate courses focused on environmental engineering and water systems. His research aims to address fundamental gaps in understanding which inhibit sustainable development and adversely impact human health, with a special interest in water infrastructure. Recently, Dr. McElmurry’s work has focused on understanding the complex interactions between exposure to chemicals and pathogens in Flint’s municipal water system. He is co-leader of the Flint Area Community Health and Environment Partnership (FACHEP), a multi-institutional collaboration formed to evaluate associations between changes in Flint’s water system and adverse public health impacts. Building on lessons from Flint, Dr. McElmurry’s current focus is on how water and health systems learn and adapt to challenges, with the goal of enhanced system and community resilience.
+ Point of Use Water Filters: A Grassroots Train-the-Trainer Program
Dean, School of Education
George Herbert Mead Collegiate Professor of Education
Arthur F. Thurnau Professor
Elizabeth Birr Moje is dean, George Herbert Mead Collegiate Professor of Education, and an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Literacy, Language, and Culture in the School of Education. Moje teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in secondary and adolescent literacy, cultural theory, and research methods and was awarded the Provost’s Teaching Innovation Prize with colleague, Bob Bain, in 2010. A former high school history and biology teacher, Moje’s research examines young people’s navigations of culture, identity, and literacy learning in and out of school in Detroit, Michigan. Moje has published 5 books and numerous articles in journals such as Science, Harvard Educational Review, Teachers College Record, Reading Research Quarterly, Journal of Literacy Research, Review of Education Research, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Science Education, International Journal of Science Education, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, and the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. Her research projects have been or are currently funded by the National Institutes of Health/NICHD, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, National Science Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, Spencer Foundation, International Reading Association, and the National Academy of Education. Moje chairs the William T. Grant Foundation Scholar Selection Committee and is a member of the National Academy of Education.
Dr. Joseph Myers is a Windsor, Ontario native and Canadian resident who crosses an international border daily for his work and research pursuits in Ann Arbor, MI, USA. He has been practicing Optometry at the University of Michigan for 30 years. He graduated with MCO from Ferris State University College of Optometry in 1988. He is presently part of the University’s “Third Century Initiative,” researching and providing advanced health care to underserved populations around the world. In this capacity, he serves as an investigator for the Common Health Plus, Container-to-Clinic pilot project. Dr. Myers was a co-founder (with Dr. Richard Cross) of the Eye Health Institute which has served the eye care needs of the residents in Hanover Parish, Jamaica. He is married to Lilly Perdomo and has 3 children.
+ Transforming Shipping Containers into Chronic Care Clinics
Assistant Professor of Ophthamology and Vistual Sciences
Dr. Newman-Casey is a clinical ophthalmologist who specializes in the medical and surgical management of glaucoma. She is an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences at the University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center. She completed medical school (2007), residency (2011) and fellowship (2013) at the University of Michigan. She holds a master’s degree in Health Services Research (University of Michigan, 2012). Her current research on developing and testing technology based behavioral interventions to improve glaucoma self-management support. She is also interested in how operations engineering techniques can be used to improve patient’s experience in clinic and identify ways to integrate more education into patients’ clinical encounters. Her research is funded by a K23 Career Development Award from the National Eye Institute and a Research to Prevent Blindness Career Development Award.
+ Transforming Shipping Containers into Chronic Care Clinics
Founder, Rich Earth Institute
Abraham Noe-Hays is a co-founder of the Rich Earth Institute, and currently directs its research into nutrient reclamation from source-separated human urine. The Institute operates the nation’s first community-scale urine recycling program in Brattleboro, Vermont, collecting urine from approximately one hundred participants and supplying sanitized fertilizer products to nearby farms. Current research projects are supported by the USDA and NSF, and include an INFEWS partnership with the University of Michigan that is developing novel methods for producing urine-derived fertilizers. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Human Ecology from the College of the Atlantic.
Associate Professor
Gabor Orosz received the M.Sc. degree in engineering physics from Budapest University of Technology, Hungary, in 2002, and the Ph.D. degree in engineering mathematics from University of Bristol,U.K., in 2006. He held post-doctoral positions with University of Exeter, UK, and University of California at Santa Barbara. He joined University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2010, where he is currently an associate professor in mechanical engineering and in civil and environmental engineering. His research interests include nonlinear dynamics and control, time-delay systems, networks and complex systems with applications on connected and automated vehicles, and biological networks.
Altarum/ERIM Russell O'Neal Professor of Engineering
Professor Lutgarde Raskin is the Altarum/ERIM Russell O’Neal Professor of Engineering at the University of Michigan, where she has been a professor of Environmental Engineering since 2005. Before this, she was a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) for 12 years. She received a BS/MS degree in Bioscience Engineering and a BS/MS degree in Economics from the University of Leuven (KU Leuven, Belgium). Her PhD degree is in Environmental Engineering from UIUC. Raskin is globally recognized as an expert in microbial aspects of anaerobic waste treatment and drinking water treatment technologies.
Professor Raskin has a strong service record. She co-organized the 2013 IWA Microbial Ecology and Water Engineering (MEWE) conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She currently serves on the Leadership Committees of the IWA Anaerobic Digestion and MEWE Specialist Groups. She has served on the Program Committees for numerous IWA’s Specialist Group Conferences, including the Anaerobic Digestion, Biofilm, and Leading Edge Technology Conferences. She is an Associate Editor for Environmental Science & Technology and serves on the Editorial Board/Advisory Board of five other journals. She has served on various committees of other professional societies, including the AEESP, for which she currently serves on the Board of Directors.
Director, University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute
Research Scientist, Human Factors Group
Jim Sayer, Ph.D. has been a member of the research faculty at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) since 1993, where he currently serves as the unit Director. He is Chair of the U-M Institutional Autonomous Systems Committee, and past Chair of the U-M Health and Behavioral Sciences Institutional Review Board.
Dr. Sayer conducts both basic and translational research in the areas of advanced vehicle safety systems, connected vehicle and infrastructure applications, naturalistic driving behavior, and driver distraction. He is an internationally recognized leader in the conduct and evaluation of field operational tests of vehicle safety systems and the study of naturalistic driving behavior. Dr. Sayer currently serves as the Principal Investigator of the U.S. DOT’s Ann Arbor Connected Vehicle Test Environment, and recently served as the Principle Investigator for the U.S. DOT’s Connected Vehicle Safety Pilot Model Deployment program.
Dr. Sayer completed his graduate studies at Virginia Tech where he received his Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering in 1993. Dr. Sayer received his B.S. in Biopsychology from the University of Michigan in 1988. In 2015 he received theWhite House Transportation Champion of Change Award recognizing exemplary leadership in advancing transportation and championing innovation that will benefit our nation’s transportation system for his conceptualization, design and construction of Mcity – the world’s first test facility dedicated to the development and evaluation of connected and automated vehicle technologies.
Associate Professor
Kathy Velikov is an Architect, Associate Professor at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, and President of ACADIA. She is founding partner of the research-based practice rvtr, which serves as a platform for exploration and experimentation in the intertwinements between architecture, the environment, technology, and sociopolitics. Her work ranges from material prototypes that explore new possibilities for architectural skins that mediate matter, energy, information, space, and atmosphere between bodies and environments, to the investigation of urban infrastructures and territorial practices, working through the techniques of mapping and analysis, speculative design propositions, installations, and writing. Kathy is a recipient of the Architectural League’s Young Architects Award, the Canadian Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture, and co-author of the book Infra Eco Logi Urbanism (2015). Her work and writing has been published in TAD, AD, Footprint, JAE, IJAC, Leonardo, New Geographies, eVolo, Volume, [bracket] Goes Soft, and MONU, as well as in the books Towards a Robotic Architecture, Third Coast Atlas, Infrastructure Space, Hypernatural, Paradigms in Computing, Performative Materials in Architecture, and High Performance Homes. She is co-curator of the traveling exhibition “Ambiguous Territory: Architecture, Landscape and the Postnatural” and co-editor of an upcoming book on the topic.
+ Transforming Shipping Containers into Chronic Care Clinics
Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Dr. Krista Rule Wigginton received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech and her B.S. in Chemistry at the University of Idaho and conducted postdoctoral research at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland. In 2013, she joined the faculty in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan as an assistant professor of environmental engineering. Dr. Wigginton’s research team focuses on pollutant fate in water treatment processes, and on improving pathogen and micropollutant detection. She’s the recipient of the U.S. NSF International Postdoctoral Fellowship and the NSF CAREER award.
Assistant Professor of Ophthamology and Vistual Sciences
Dr. Maria Woodward is a physician-scientist focused on healthcare delivery specifically for the anterior segment of the eye. Her career goal is to dramatically extend high-quality, affordable eye care to underserved and under-represented communities nationally and globally. Funded by a National Eye Institute K23 grant, much of Dr. Woodward’s research focuses on novel ophthalmic technologies and eHealth clinical programs – particularly disease-monitoring tools with low acquisition and delivery costs. Her research goal is to personalize treatments much earlier and more accurately in order to improve outcomes. Additionally, Dr. Woodward is the co-director of the University of Michigan’s Kellogg Eye Center eHealth at and the director of Telemedicine and Clinical Programs. She serves on the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s Research, Regulatory & External Scientific Relations Committee and American Academy of Ophthalmology’s Telemedicine Task Force. She collaborates with national and international leaders in telemedicine, cornea, health sciences, and engineering, including close collaboration with Aravind Eye Hospitals in India.
+ Transforming Shipping Containers into Chronic Care Clinics
Assistant Professor of Technology and Operations and Finance
Andrew Wu is an Assistant Professor of Technology and Operations and Assistant Professor of Finance at the Ross School of Business. Andrew’s research develops and applies machine learning and automated textual analysis methods to extract and quantify new financial and operating information from large-scale unstructured data, such as corporate disclosures, news reports, government documents, and social media. He also conducts extensive research and industry collaboration in FinTech, particularly in blockchain, cryptocurrencies, smart infrastructure and tokenized assets, and robo-advisors. His research has received many awards such as the BlackRock Applied Research Award and the National Science Foundation Award. Andrew holds a Ph.D. in Finance from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. in Mathematics and Economics from Yale University.
Dr. Yafeng Yin joined The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in January 2017 coming to U-M from the University of Florida. Dr. Yin is a member of our Next Generation Transportation Systems and Intelligent Systems groups. Dr. Yin is an internationally recognized expert on transportation systems analysis and modeling, and has published approximately 100 refereed papers in leading academic journals. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, one of the leading academic journals in the transportation domain.
Dr. Yin received his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo in 2002, his master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China in 1996 and 1994, respectively. Prior to his current appointment at the University of Michigan, he was a faculty member at University of Florida between 2005 and 2016. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher and then assistant research engineer at University of California at Berkeley between 2002 and 2005. Between 1996 and 1999, he was a lecturer at Tsinghua University. Dr. Yin has received recognition from different institutions.
He was one of the five recipients of the 2012 Doctoral Mentoring Award from University of Florida in recognition of his outstanding graduate student advising and mentoring. One of his papers won the 2016 Stella Dafermos Best Paper Award and the Ryuichi Kitamura Paper Award from Transportation Research Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. He was also recently elected to serve on the prestigious International Advisory Committee of the International Symposium of Transportation and Traffic Theory (ISTTT).
Dr. Yin’s research interests include the analysis, modeling, design and optimization of transportation systems toward achieving sustainability and economic efficiency. His ongoing research involves investigating the implications of emerging technologies on mobility systems. “I closely follow the development of new technologies, such as smart mobile devices and apps, sensor technologies, electric vehicles, drones, and connected and automated vehicles,” says Dr. Yin. “I examine how they could potentially affect both the demand and supply sides of transportation systems, and then explore how to leverage these new technologies to better design, operate and manage transportation systems and improve the efficiency, reliability, safety, and diversity of the transportation services.” Beyond transportation, Dr. Yin also studies the interdependency of urban infrastructure systems, such as transportation, power and communications networks.
+ Energy Savings through Integrated Personalized, Real-time Traveler Information and Incentive Scheme
Dimitrios Zekkos, PhD, PE, is an Associate Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department of the University of Michigan. His research interests are in the nexus of geotechnical engineering, natural hazards, and informatics. Dr. Zekkos received his undergraduate degree from the University of Patras in Greece, and a MSCE and PhD Degree in Geoengineering from the University of California at Berkeley. Prior to joining the University of Michigan in 2008, he worked for Geosyntec Consultants in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has published more than 100 publications in refereed journals and conferences, and has been recognized with several awards including the Middlebrooks Award, Casagrande Award and Collingwood Prize by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and the Outstanding Innovator Award by the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering. He is the CEO of ARGO-E LLC, a startup based in Ann Arbor with a focus on informatics in civil engineering.