Welcome BBQ
Nima Rahbar (above left), White Family Distinguished Professor of Engineering, was appointed as the new Department Head, so we had lots to celebrate at our welcome BBQ, including perfect weather!
CEAE was thrilled to welcome Donna Zuidema (formerly of the Provost’s Office and, prior to that, the President’s Office) to the department. Joan Langlois retired last June, so we are happy to have Donna help wrangle the office's priorities.
Grill queens Jeanine Dudle and Julie Bleyhl.
Faculty News
Jeanine Dudle
Associate Professor and Associate Department Head Jeanine Dudle was elected to the Board of Directors of the New England Water Works Association, Inc., as Director at Large.
Suzanne LePage
Senior Instructor Suzanne LePage was featured in a Society of Women Engineers Magazine article that profiled several women in engineering with professional endeavors outside their field. Suzanne recently retired from owning and managing a restaurant, brewery, and bar.
Carrick Eggleston
Professor Carrick Eggleston had a busy year. His National Science Foundation grant allowed him to explore how to make and cure a carbon-storing concrete-alternative construction material inspired by Professor Rahbar’s work in this area. He taught a new Geotechnical Laboratory course and co-advised a cohort of IQP students in Copenhagen, Denmark, during D term. Additionally, Carrick was interviewed and featured in This Old House magazine about rooftop photovoltaics. Lastly, he was awarded a sabbatical leave for the 2025-2026 academic year, working with the Advance Structures and Composites Center at the University of Maine and with the Wilson Museum in Castine, Maine on a new exhibit.
Mingjiang Tao
Associate Professor Mingjiang Tao was recently awarded a one-million-dollar grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Partnership for Innovations. The NSF's PFI program accelerates the development of breakthrough technologies and speeds up new solutions. The project is both innovative and cost-effective, offering a practical solution to the challenge of improving saline coastal soils. This is particularly important when traditional Portland cement-based methods are ineffective or problematic. The soil improvement technology that will be developed not only meets technological, industrial, and market needs but also contributes to a more sustainable future by using a ‘greener' soil stabilizer derived from abundant industrial waste (i.e., fly ash-based geopolymer). The broader impact of this Partnerships for Innovation Research Partnership (PFI-RP) project is to develop innovative, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly soil improvement solutions for coastal regions.
Steven Van Dessel
Associate Professor and Director of the Architectural Engineering Program Steven Van Dessel spearheaded the effort for the Master of Architecture program to receive official NAAB candidacy status this year. This marks a significant achievement for WPI as the only institution in the U.S. where students can earn both ABET- and NAAB-accredited architecture degrees within five years.
Harold Walker
Schwaber, Professor Harold Walker, published Cyanotoxins and Drinking Water: Fundamental Concepts and Solutions. This textbook provides students with a more holistic, systems-based perspective of harmful algal blooms (HABs) and HAB toxins, while explaining the details of their occurrence, health effects, and treatment processes for the removal of HAB cells and toxins from drinking water. It includes significant content on basic concepts, system design, and thought-provoking problems and questions to inspire further study, making it suitable for senior undergraduate and graduate-level students. It also serves as a useful resource for professionals and academics engaged in technical activities related to HABs and HAB toxins in drinking water.
Tahar El-Korchi
Professor Tahar El-Korchi will be publishing his 5th edition of the textbook Pavement Engineering: Principals and Practice (published by Taylor and Francis) in the coming year.
Paul Mathisen
During the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) 50th anniversary celebration, Paul Mathisen, Associate Professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering and WPI’s Director of Sustainability and Corey Denenberg Dehner, Associate Professor of Teaching in The Global School, were awarded the MassDEP Educator Award. The professors are co-directors of the Massachusetts Water Resources Outreach Center. The project center allows WPI student teams to partner with municipalities, local government agencies, and watershed organizations to address water resource challenges.
Professor Mathisen was also awarded the ASCE - EWRI Groundwater Council Certificate of Appreciation at the EWRI World Congress in Anchorage on May 21st, to honor individuals critical to enhancing the visibility of the EWRI Groundwater Council.
Leonard Albano
Associate Professor Leonard Albano was named an ASCE 2024 Outstanding Reviewer for the Journal of Civil Engineering Education, recognizing his dedication, impressive contributions, and time to the review process, thereby maintaining the journal’s integrity and reputation. He was previously recognized by this journal in 2020 and was also recognized by the ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering in 2019.
Jessica Rosewitz
Assistant Teaching Professor Jessica Rosewitz is in her final year as PI for the $1 million grant, nicknamed "CoMPASS' from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Along with her co-PIs, Dr. Katherine Chen, Executive Director of STEM Education, and Debra Boucher, Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Professor Rosewitz graduated the last cohort of students, high achieving scholars from the Worcester Public Schools, supported on the grant. Since 2019, the team has achieved an average 90% graduation rate, surpassing the WPI graduation rate for the entire student body.
Professor Rosewitz is the program coordinator and PI for the Early Research Experience in the E-term (EREE), funded by a grant from WPI’s Women's Impact Network (WIN) and collaboratively supported by generous contributions from the WPI ODIME office, the Dean of Students office, and the Dean of Undergraduate Studies office to support 24 WPI students on campus this summer doing research with faculty. With a broad range of student majors and disciplines, the final event for the EREE summer research program will be the summer research showcase and poster symposium on July 31st from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. in WPI's Innovation Studio. Approximately 100 students will present their research in a poster session format and celebrate the culmination of their hard work. WPI President Grace Wang will be the keynote speaker. Professor Rosewitz meets with the students each week to conduct professional development sessions geared toward their current position as rising sophomores and Juniors at WPI. Other students also attend professional development sessions, such as various NSF REU programs in mathematics, statistics, physics, and biomedical engineering.
The WPI trustees awarded Professor Rosewitz for outstanding academic advising, a great honor that she humbly received. The award was presented at the Faculty Convocation by one of her MQP advisees, Geethika Chandragiri, and reiterated at Commencement by Provost Andrew Sears.
Professor Rosewitz encouraged the following students to apply for scholarships this year and supported them with letters of recommendation:
⦁ Graduate student Emmanuel Amankwah (MS in CPM, ’25) received the Construction Management Association of America (CMAA) New England Chapter scholarship for graduate students.
⦁ Undergraduate Freddie Smith (CE major, rising senior) received a scholarship from the National Academy of Construction (NAC), and was also encouraged by WPI alum Tony Leketa (WPI '69/'77).
⦁ Undergraduate Amber Murphy (CE and ME double major, rising sophomore) received a scholarship from the American Council of Engineering Companies of Connecticut Scholarship (ACEC-CT 2025 Scholarship).
Lastly, under Professor Rosewitz’s advising, undergraduate students Matt Richards, Freddie Smith, Maeve Steckley, Joshua Martin, and James Langley are the student chapter executive board of the newly re-formed Associated General Contractors (AGC) student chapter and are chartered as a student chapter by the professional AGC Massachusetts Chapter.
Shichao Liu
Assistant Professor Shichao Liu received the ASHRAE Distinguished Service Award at the organization’s annual meeting in Phoenix, Arizona. This award recognizes ASHRAE members who have served the society faithfully and with distinction on committees or otherwise given freely of their time and talent on behalf of the society.
Additionally, Professor Liu’s research on the impact of extreme heat on driving performance was featured by NBC Connecticut last summer.
With a $399,978 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Professor Liu is leading a three-year project to develop and test AI-empowered models within AR for effectiveness in architectural design studios at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and Drexel University.
Soroush Farzin
As principal investigator (PI), Liu will be joined on the project by two WPI co-PIs: Soroush Farzin, Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering, and Gillian Smith, Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Director of the WPI Interactive Media and Game Development program. Kimberly LeChasseur, Senior Research & Evaluation Associate in the Morgan Teaching & Learning Center, will evaluate the effectiveness of the developed tools.
WPI was awarded a seed grant from the Gapontsev Family Collaborative Venture Fund for an early-stage research project titled “The Glass with Sass: Flavylium-Coated Windows Fighting Energy Loss.”
From left, Anita Mattson, Soroush Farzin, Christopher Lambert, Doug Petkie, and Suzanne Scarlata
Anita Mattson, professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, is principal investigator (PI) for the project, which was awarded $63,457. Co-PIs are Soroush Farzin, assistant professor of teaching in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering; Teaching Professor Christopher Lambert and Richard T. Whitcomb Professor Suzanne Scarlata, both of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry; and Doug Petkie, professor and head of the Department of Physics. The team will focus on researching energy-saving window coatings.
Nancy Ma
Lastly, we welcomed Assistant Professor Nancy Ma’s healthy and adorable baby boy, Alan, to the department on December 30.
New Faculty Hire
Dr. Lindsay Graff joined us as an Assistant Professor in August 2025. Lindsay brings an exceptional blend of expertise and innovation in Transportation Engineering to our department. Her outstanding work on network optimization and emerging mobility, along with her code titled NOMAD, has garnered significant recognition in the field, and we are excited to see the innovative contributions she will bring to our department. In addition to her impressive research, Lindsay is an exceptional educator and mentor. We are confident that she will inspire and challenge our students by fostering a dynamic and stimulating learning environment in the broad field of transportation engineering. Lindsay’s arrival will surely ignite new ideas and propel our department to even greater scholarship heights.
ASHRAE Graduate Student Grant-in-Aid
Civil Engineering PhD student and Research Assistant Rachel Hurley was selected as a recipient of an ASHRAE Graduate Student Grant-in-Aid. The award aims to support students with the greatest potential for long term involvement in ASHRAE and contributions to the ASHRAE membership and involves an amount of up to $10,000 for the 2025-2026 academic year for her research, “The impact of building characteristics and materials on the fate and transport of indoor VOCs from wildfire smoke.”
National Academy of Construction Scholarship
MS student Freddie Smith was awarded a prestigious National Academy of Construction (NAC) scholarship for AY 25-26. Immersed in heavy construction from a young age through his family's involvement with Worcester Sand and FT Smith Sand and Gravel, Freddie developed a deep appreciation for the practical challenges of the industry. This early exposure inspired his academic focus on structural design and project implementation. Dedicated to gaining hands-on experience, he will serve as a Geotechnical Engineering Intern at GEI Consultants this summer. Freddie’s academic excellence and leadership potential are evident in his induction into the Chi Epsilon and Tau Beta Pi honor societies. He is also actively involved in his university's ASCE Chapter's Steel Bridge Team, which is heading to Nationals for the first time in over a decade, and will serve as co-captain for next year’s design team as they prepare for the national competition hosted by AISC.
American Institute of Architecture Central Massachusetts
The American Institute of Architecture Central Massachusetts (AIACM), with the support of Pella Windows and Doors and AIA National, awarded a $1000 scholarship to Megan Tupaj, a Master of Architecture student. One of Megan's professors said of her, "Megan is a meritorious graduate of the WPI Class of 2024, completing her B.S. degree in Architectural Engineering and Mathematical Sciences with High Distinction Honors and a cumulative GPA of a nearly perfect 3.96 on a 4-point scale. This fall, she plans to continue her studies at WPI in the Master of Architecture program. I have been at WPI since fall 1992, teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in structural engineering, and I hold Megan in high regard. I would rank her among the top four or five students in any given graduating class. Megan is an outstanding individual whose academic capabilities, integrity, communication skills, and leadership are well aligned with professional promise.”
ASCE Student Chapter
The Concrete Canoe Team won third place overall in this year’s competition.
The Steel Bridge Team won second place in Aesthetics and third place in Stiffness in the state competition, earning them a trip to compete at the Nationals. Their bridge build time was 26.5 min and exhibited little to no movement under the lateral load test, and its average deflection under vertical load was approximately 0.8 in. on a 19-foot span. Ultimately, they won first place in the Cost Estimation category.
Senior BBQ 2025
