Civil Infrastructure

Overview

Civil infrastructure systems involves the design, analysis, and management of infrastructure supporting human activities, including, for example, electric power, oil and gas, water and wastewater, communications, transportation, and the collections of buildings that make up urban and rural communities. These networks deliver essential services, provide shelter, and support social interactions and economic development. They are society’s lifelines.

The field of civil infrastructure systems builds on and extends traditional civil engineering areas. Rather than focus on individual structural components or structures, civil infrastructure systems emphasizes how different structures behave together as a system that serves a community’s needs. Problems in this field typically involve a great deal of uncertainty, multiple and competing objectives, and sometimes numerous and conflicting constituencies. They are often spatial and dynamic. The technical aspects of infrastructure engineering must be understood in the social, economic, political, and cultural context in which they exist, and must be considered over a long-time horizon that includes not just design and construction, but maintenance, operations, performance in natural disasters and other extreme events, and destruction as well.

Degrees Offered

• Master’s of Civil Engineering
• Master’s of Applied Science
• PhD in Civil Engineering

Courses

Core Courses:

• CIEG 655 – Civil Infrastructure Systems
• CIEG 641 – Risk Analysis
• CIEG 659 – Optimal Design OR
• APEC 601 – Survey of Operations Research I

Suggested electives include:

• Civil Infrastructure Systems
  • CIEG 650 – Urban Transportation Systems
  • CIEG 611 – Structural Dynamics Design
  • CIEG 667 – Resilience Engineering
  • CIEG 667 – Sensors
  • CIEG 811 – Advanced Structural Dynamics Design
• Modeling
  • MAST 663 – Decision Tools for Policy Analysis
  • BUAD 836 – Problem Structuring and Analysis for Decision Making
  • GEOG 670 – Geographic Information Systems
  • GEOG 671 – Advanced Geographic Information Systems
  • GEOG 677 – Spatial Analysis
  • APEC 602 – Survey of Operations Research II
  • APEC 603 – Simulation Modeling and Analysis
  • STAT 601 – Probability Theory for Operations Research and Statistics
  • STAT 602 – Mathematical Statistics
  • STAT 608 – Statistical Research Methods
  • STAT 609 – Regression and Experimental Design
  • STAT 611 – Regression Analysis
  • UAPP 704 – Statistics for Policy Analysis
• Social Science and Policy Analysis
  • DISA 650 – Overview of Disaster Science and Mgt
  • SOCI 671-– Disasters, Vulnerability and Develoment
  • MAST 672 – Applied Policy Analysis
  • ECON 801 – Microeconomics
  • ECON 802 – Macroeconomics

Students without any computer programming or Computer Science background should take CISC 106, CISC 181 or CISC 220. The College of Engineering also periodically offers courses in technical writing for graduate students. Students should strongly consider these courses when announcements are posted.

Faculty

Nii Attoh-Okine – Computational intelligence and probabilistic reasoning in Civil Infrastructure Systems

Rachel Davidson – natural disaster risk analysis

Earl “Rusty” Lee – management and vulnerability of interdependent systems

Sue McNeil – asset management

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