ENVE 3200: Environmental Engineering Laboratory

offered every spring. Vadas teaches in rotation with Dr. Agrios and Dr. Li

This course will expose you to environmental engineering concepts you’ve only seen in textbooks or have yet to cover in other courses through visual observations and data collection.  We will heavily focus on the process of analyzing and interpreting data, and conceptual understanding of what the data means.  You will do a lot of calculations and a lot of writing, but all will be with help and guidance from the instructors.  More quantitative exercises are interspersed with qualitative observations, and more outside time as the weather gets warmer.

ENVE 4320: Ecological Principles and Engineering

offered every fall.

Course Description: We cannot eliminate pollutants nor can we completely control nature, and thus we must understand and adapt to the capacity of the natural environment to buffer our impacts.  The goal is to break out of the rigidity of typical engineered systems and accommodate the diversity and complexity of ecosystems to provide the services our society needs.  Ecological Engineering solutions offer the efficiency and adaptability of a natural system within the constraints of an engineered system.  This includes microcosms (microbial fuel cells), mesocosms (rain gardens), replicated or restored ecosystems (treatment wetlands), living machine waste treatment systems and more integrated within our constructed environment or human settlement.  This course will introduce you to the basic principles of ecology combined with environmental engineering principles to design effective solutions to environmental problems.

ENVE 4910/4920W: Environmental Engineering Senior Design I/II

offered every year.

Course Description: This course is meant to transition you from an engineering student to a practicing engineer.  You have spent the last few years learning bits and pieces of what it takes to be an environmental engineer.  This course ties together much of that knowledge while applying it to a present day problem.  The problems are open-ended and the course experience is more about the process than the outcome.  You will define your problem, identify and analyze any relevant information, develop a model, evaluate alternative solutions, and design an appropriate solution to meet client, site, regulatory, and economic constraints. You will struggle with finding the appropriate information, working with team members, applying your skills to an actual site with various issues (simplifying assumptions not always applicable), and communicating with advisors, clients, and stakeholders.  This is all realistic.  Throughout the project you will improve your ability to discern information, address working in team issues, communicate informally and formally, and manage your time.  I welcome any discussion on these issues.

Communicating, both orally and in writing, is a large part of any future job. You will improve your writing and presentation skills through in class discussion and writing review, advisor and instructor comments, peer review and self-assessment.  You should end up with a product you are proud of and is useful for your client.

We work on real projects from industry and municipal sponsors every year. 

I also sometimes offer courses in Environmental Organic Chemistry (graduate level) and Environmental Debate.