beth dissertation prize

E. W. Beth Dissertation 2013 Prize Winners

Our Philosophy Department would like to congratulate Wesley H. Holliday (Stanford University) and Ekaterina Lebedeva (University of Lorraine) for winning the 2013 E.W Beth Dissertation Prize!

Since 2002, FoLLI (the Association for Logic, Language, and Information) awards the E.W. Beth Dissertation Prize to outstanding dissertations in the fields of Logic, Language, and Information. We invite submissions for the best dissertation in which resulted in a Ph.D. degree in the year 2012. The dissertations will be judged on technical depth and strength, originality, and impact made in at least two of three fields of Logic, Language, and Computation. Interdisciplinarity is an important feature of the theses competing for the E.W. Beth Dissertation Prize.

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Deadline Extension for E. W. Beth Outstanding Dissertation Prize 2020

The Beth Dissertation Prize is to go ahead in 2020 with a deadline extension to 30th of April 2020. Nominations are welcome for the best dissertations in the areas of logic, language and information, resulting in a Ph.D. degree awarded in 2019.

The 32nd ESSLLI summer school is postponed to 2021, due to the spread of CV-19. The Beth Prize will be awarded either through a virtual ceremony in 2020 or a presentation in ESSLLI 2021. The winner will be announced in early July 2020.

For details about the qualifications and the prize, see http://www.folli.info/?page_id=74 .

Only digital submissions are accepted. The following documents are to be submitted in the nomination dossier:

- The original dissertation in pdf format (ps/doc/rtf etc. not acceptable). - A ten-page English abstract of the dissertation, presenting the main results of each chapter. - A letter of nomination from the dissertation supervisor, which concisely describes the scope and significance of the dissertation, stating when the degree was officially awarded and the members of the Ph.D. committee. Nominations should contain the address, phone and email details of the nominator. - Two additional letters of support, including at least one from a referee not affiliated with the academic institution that awarded the Ph.D. degree, nor otherwise related to the nominee (e.g. former teachers, supervisors, co-authors, publishers or relatives) or the dissertation. - Self-nominations are not possible.

All pdf documents must be submitted electronically, as one zip file, via EasyChair by following the link https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=bdp2020 .

In case of any problems or questions please contact the chair of the committee Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh ( m.sadrzadeh [at] ucl.ac.uk ).

Beth dissertation prize committee 2020:

Samson Abramsky (University of Oxford) Maria Aloni (University of Amsterdam) Alexander Clark (Kings College London) Cleo Condoravdi (Stanford University) Robin Cooper (University of Gothenburg) Guy Emerson (University of Cambridge) Katrin Erk (University of Texas at Austin) Arash Eshghi (Hariot-Watt University) Sujata Ghosh (ISI, Chennai) Davide Grossi (Universities of Groningen and Amsterdam) Chris Haase (University College London) Aurelie Herbelot (University of Trento) Louise McNally (Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona) Reinhard Muskens (University of Amsterdam) Laura Rimmell (Deep Mind) Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh (University College London, chair) Matthew Stone (Rutgers) Jouko Vaananen (University of Helsinki) Noam Zeilberger (Ecole Polytechnique)

Since 2002, the Association for Logic, Language, and Information (FoLLI) has been awarding the annual E.W. Beth Dissertation Prize to outstanding Ph.D. dissertations in Logic, Language, and Information ( http://www.folli.info/?page_id=74 ), with financial support of the E.W. Beth Foundation ( https://www.knaw.nl/en/awards/funds/evert-willem-beth-stichting/evert-wi... ).

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Beth Dissertation Prize

Since 2002, the Association for Logic, Language, and Information (FoLLI) has been awarding the annual E.W. Beth Dissertation Prize to outstanding Ph.D. dissertations in Logic, Language, and Information, with financial support of the E.W. Beth Foundation.

In this session, Larry Moss, the FoLLI president, sketches the general background of the Beth Dissertation Prize. Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh, the chair of the Beth Prize jury, then announces he winners of the 2020 and 2021 editions. The winners briefly present their work, and the laudatios are read by Sadrzadeh and Moss.

The E.W. Beth Dissertation Prize in Logic, Language and Information 2020 has been awarded jointly to

Marcin Wągiel , “Subatomic Quantification” (Masaryk University, Brno) Juan Aguilera , “Between the Finite and the Infinite” (TU Wien)

The E.W.Beth Dissertation Prize in Logic, Language and Information 2021 has been awarded jointly to

Ilaria Canavotto , “Where Responsibility Takes You” (ILLC, Amsterdam) Martin Lück , “Team Logic Axioms, Expressiveness, Complexity” (Universität Hannover)

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University of Warsaw Dr. Bartosz Wcisło awarded E.W. Beth Dissertation Prize 2019

Dr. bartosz wcisło awarded e.w. beth dissertation prize 2019.

Doctor Bartosz Wcisło has received the E.W. Beth Dissertation Prize for his dissertation “Understanding the strength of compositional truth”. It is the world’s most important prize for dissertation in the field of logic.

Dr. Bartosz Wcisło’s thesis in the theory of truth, written under the supervision of Prof. Cezary Cieśliński from the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Warsaw, was selected by the Association for Logic, Language and Information (FoLLI) out of the 14 nominated theses.

Each year FoLLI awards the E. W. Beth Dissertation Prize, named in honour of the Dutch mathematician Evert Willem Beth. This prize rewards outstanding contributions in the domains of Logic, Language and Information.

Also, two other scholars from the University of Warsaw received the prize: Prof. Leszek Kołodziejczyk (2006) and Dr. Michał Skrzypczak (2015).

The official E.W. Beth Dissertation Prize awarding event will take place on 15 th August during the European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information 2019 in Riga.

More information: http://www.folli.info/?page_id=74

The Association for Logic, Language and Information

Winner of 2022 E.W. Beth Dissertation Prize Announced

We are pleased to announce the winner of the 2022 E.W. Beth Dissertation Prize:

Alexander Bentkamp ,   Superposition for Higher-Order Logics ,  VU Amsterdam

The finalists for the prize are:

• Vrunda Dave ,  On Some Fundamental Problems and Applications of Word Transducers ,  IIT Bombay
• Markus Hecher ,   Advanced Tools and Methods for Treewidth-Based Problem Solving , Vienna University of Technology
• Jonathan Sterling ,  First Steps in Synthetic Tait Computability, The Objective Metatheory of Cubical Type Theory , Carnegie Melon University
• Elodie Winckel ,  French S ubject Islands: Empirical and Formal Approaches ,  Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

E. W. Beth Dissertation Prize, 2019: call for nominations

Since 2002,  the Association for Logic, Language, and Information  (FoLLI) has been awarding the annual E.W. Beth Dissertation Prize to outstanding Ph.D. dissertations in Logic, Language, and Information (http://www.folli.info/?page_id=74), with financial support of the  E.W. Beth Foundation  . Nominations are now invited for the best dissertation in these areas resulting in a Ph.D. degree conferred in 2018.  The deadline for nominations is the 15th of April 2019.

Qualifications

• There are no restrictions on the nationality, ethnicity, age, gender or employment status of the author of the nominated dissertation, nor on the university, academic department or scientific institution formally conferring the Ph.D. degree, nor on the language in which the dissertation has originally been written.
• In accordance with the aim of the Beth Foundation to continue and extend the work of the Dutch logician  Evert Willem Beth , nominations are invited of excellent dissertations on current topics in philosophical and mathematical logic, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, history of logic, history of the philosophy of science and scientific philosophy in general, as well as the current theoretical and foundational developments in information and computation, language and cognition. Dissertations with results more broadly impacting various research areas in their interdisciplinary investigations are especially solicited.
• If a nominated dissertation has originally been written in a language other than English, its dossier should still contain the required 10 page English abstract, see below. If the committee decides that a nominated dissertation in a language other than English requires translation to English for proper evaluation, the committee can transfer its nomination to the competition in 2020. The English translation must in such cases be submitted before the deadline of the call for nominations in 2020. The committee may recommend the Beth Foundation to consider supporting such nominated dissertations for English translation, upon request by the author of the dissertation.

The prize consists of:

• a certificate
• a donation of 3000 euros, provided by the E.W. Beth Foundation
• an invitation to submit the dissertation, possibly after revision, for publication in  FoLLI Publications on Logic, Language and Information (Springer).

Nomination Dossier

Only digital submissions are accepted, without exception. The following documents are to be submitted in the nomination dossier:

• The original dissertation in pdf format (ps/doc/rtf etc. not acceptable).
• A ten-page English abstract of the dissertation, presenting the main results of each chapter.
• Two additional letters of support, including at least one from a referee not affiliated with the academic institution that awarded the Ph.D. degree, nor otherwise related to the nominee (e.g. former teachers, supervisors, co-authors, publishers or relatives) or the dissertation.
• Self-nominations are not possible.

All pdf documents must be submitted electronically, as one zip file, to EasyChair (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=beth2019). Hard copy submissions are not allowed, without exception. In case of any problems with the submission one should contact the secretary of the committee  Natasha Alechina  . 

The prize will be awarded by the chair of the FoLLI board at a ceremony during the 31st ESSLLI summer school in Riga, University of Latvia, August 5-16, 2019.

Beth dissertation prize committee 

• Sujata Ghosh (ISI Chennai, India)
• Nina Gierasimczuk (DTU, Lyngby, Denmark)
• Thomas Icard (Stanford U., US)
• Benedikt Löwe (UvA, The Netherlands; U. of Hamburg, Germany; U. of Cambridge, UK)
• Angelo Montanari (U. of Udine, Italy)
• Jerry Seligman (U. of Auckland, New Zealand)
• Wilfried Sieg (CMU, US)
• Hans Smessaert (KU Leuven, Belgium)
• Mark Steedman (U. of Edinburgh, UK)
• Alice ter Meulen (London, UK), chair
• Natasha Alechina (U. of Nottingham, UK), non-voting secretary.

The Language of Mathematics

A Linguistic and Philosophical Investigation

• © 2013
• Mohan Ganesalingam 0

Trinity College, Cambridge, UK

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

• Up-to-date results in parsing of the language of mathematics
• Describes an application of semantic analysis to mathematical language
• Contains results that can be of interest to computer scientists working in theorem proving and to linguists

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS, volume 7805)

Part of the book sub series: Theoretical Computer Science and General Issues (LNTCS)

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Introduction

The linguistic status of mathematics.

• computational linguistics
• foundations of mathematics
• mathematical language
• philosophy of mathematics

Table of contents (9 chapters)

Front matter.

Mohan Ganesalingam

Theoretical Framework

Typed parsing, foundations, back matter.

Book is based on his dissertation work, which won the Association for Logic, Language, and Information’s 2011 Beth prize. … Ganesalingam’s work is thoughtful and thought-provoking. He gives an analysis of mathematical language at a depth not previously attempted, and the results are impressive. Beyond that, in the process he achieves the difficult task of bringing new insight to some very old questions in the philosophy of mathematics. I recommend the book to anyone with an interest in those questions.” (Kira Hamman, MAA Reviews, maa.org, May, 2016)

Authors and Affiliations

Bibliographic information.

Book Title : The Language of Mathematics

Book Subtitle : A Linguistic and Philosophical Investigation

Authors : Mohan Ganesalingam

Series Title : Lecture Notes in Computer Science

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37012-0

Publisher : Springer Berlin, Heidelberg

eBook Packages : Computer Science , Computer Science (R0)

Copyright Information : Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

Softcover ISBN : 978-3-642-37011-3 Published: 10 February 2013

eBook ISBN : 978-3-642-37012-0 Published: 14 March 2013

Series ISSN : 0302-9743

Series E-ISSN : 1611-3349

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : XX, 260

Number of Illustrations : 15 b/w illustrations

Topics : Computer Imaging, Vision, Pattern Recognition and Graphics , Mathematical Logic and Formal Languages , Natural Language Processing (NLP) , Artificial Intelligence

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E. W. Beth Dissertation Prize: call for nominations

Logic List Mailing Archive

Cfnominations: beth dissertation prize 2024 for dissertations in logic / language and information, deadline: 30 april 2024.

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The European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information (ESSLLI) is a yearly recurring event, which has been organized since 1989. An ESSLLI Summer School provides an interdisciplinary setting in which courses and workshops are offered in logic, linguistics and computer science. Courses (foundational, introductory and advanced) and workshops cover a wide variety of topics within three interdisciplinary areas of interest: language and computation, logic and language, and logic and computation. In addition to the workshops and courses there are usually four evening lectures, given by prominent researchers, on topics that are at the forefront of research in logic, language and computer science, also from wider scientific, historical, and philosophical perspectives. Its relevance to students of artificial intelligence is evident.

The event lasts two full weeks, and is traditionally held in the beginning or midst of August.  ESSLLI attracts  every year around 400 participants from all parts of Europe, as well as from North and Latin America, and Asia.  Participation by people from economically weaker countries is made possible by ESSLLI funding. The ESSLLI has become the main meeting place for young researchers and students in logic, linguistics and computer science to discuss current research and to share knowledge. The event is unique in its interdisciplinary set up, with no equivalents in Europe. It is organized under the auspices of the Association for Logic, Language and Information (FoLLI).

In addition to regular courses and workshops, 4 evening lectures are organized. Since 2018, one of the evening lectures is the Dick Oerle Memorial Lecture. All evening lectures are open to the general public. Since 1996, PhD and advanced students have their own daily meeting place at ESSLLI's student session, organized by and for the students, and with its own yearly prizes.

The Beth Prize award ceremony and lecture is organized by the FoLLI board. All ESSLLI participants are welcome to attend.

The FoLLI Annual General Meeting is organized by the FoLLI board . All ESSLLI participants are members of the FoLLI association and are thus welcome to attend.

During the last 6 years ESSLLI was organized in:

• Utrecht Science Park in the Uithof, Utrecht (2021) ;
• Riga, Latvia (2019) ;
• Sofia, Bulgaria (2018) ;
• Toulouse, France (2017);
• Bolzano, Italy (2016) ;
• Barcelona, Spain (2015) ;
• Tübingen, Germany (2014) .

The North American Summer School in Logic, Language and Information (NASSLLI) is a biannual school that covers many of the same topics as ESSLLI. It will run June 18-24, 2022, at USC in Los Angeles. The schools are separate. We encourage you to check out both of them. You can find more information about NASSLLI here:  https://ml-la.github.io/nasslli2022/ .

Florida State University

FSU | Department of History

Department of History

Mary elizabeth thomas dissertation prize.

Recipient 2023: Erick Braeden Lewis “The Émigré Homefront: Microhistories of Migration from the Franco-Spanish Borderlands During the Age of Revolutions”

Major Professors: Rafe Blaufarb & Cathy McClive

401 Bellamy Building 113 Collegiate Loop Tallahassee, FL 32306-2200 (850) 644-5888

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Mizuho Americas Open 2024 prize money payouts for all the LPGA golfers at Liberty National

N elly Korda's first trip to Liberty National resulted in a big payday as the No. 1 player in the world nabbed her sixth victory of the season and a $450,000 first-place prize at the Mizuho Americas Open.

Korda, who became the fastest player to reach $2 million in single-season earnings earlier this year, has now earned $2,943,708 in 2024 and $11,880,981 in her career.

Rookie Gabriela Ruffels notched her third top-3 finish of the season and another hefty check of $146,358.

The Mizuho purse increased from $2.75 million to $3 million this season in the event's second year. Mizuho also covers hotels expenses and offers a ferry shuttle to the course.

Check out how much each player made at the 2024 Mizuho Americas Open.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Mizuho Americas Open 2024 prize money payouts for all the LPGA golfers at Liberty National

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Announcement: The Tytus Cytowski Rzeczpospolita Prize 2025

17 May 2024

The newly established Tytus Cytowski Rzeczpospolita Prize will be awarded annually for the best dissertations on the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, its diverse peoples, and its legacies, within the period 1569-1918.

The prize will be eligible to students of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES), and the Departments of History and of Hebrew and Jewish Studies.  There are two categories:  a) For undergraduate dissertations (free-standing or written within a special subject): The prize for the best undergraduate dissertation will be US $2000, and for the second-best US $1000.  b) For postgraduate dissertations (MA, MRes., MPhil., or PhD degrees): The prize for the best postgraduate dissertation will be US $5000, and for the second-best US $2000.  The prize will be judged jointly by Professor Richard Butterwick-Pawlikowski, Professor of Polish-Lithuanian History, and Professor François Guesnet, Professor of Modern Jewish History (or any successors thereof), who reserve the right not to make the full number of awards.  The Prize will be awarded for the first time to the authors of dissertations written and assessed in the academic year 2024/25 and submitted for consideration in September 2025. The first winners of the prize will be announced jointly by SSEES, History, and Hebrew and Jewish Studies by 15 November 2025. Details of the submission arrangements will be provided in due course. This announcement is made for the benefit of students who are currently considering the subjects of their dissertations in 2024/25. A further announcement will be made in September 2024.  

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7 Student Teams Win Prizes to Advance Their Intelligence++ Disability, Inclusion Innovations

Faculty members Beth Myers (left) and Don Carr. (Photo by Angela Ryan)

Seven student-designed products, services and technologies meant to assist people with intellectual and developmental disabilities won recognition and seed funding at the Intelligence++ Showcase on April 25.

Fashion design major Shelstie Dastinot showed adaptive clothing having Haitian-inspired designs. (Photo by Angela Ryan)

The showcase is the culmination of the two-semester Intelligence++ (DES 400/600) course taught by Don Carr , professor and program coordinator for industrial and interaction design in the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) , and Beth Myers , Lawrence B. Taishoff assistant professor of inclusive education and executive director of the Taishoff Center in the School of Education .  They and the students are also supported by co-instructor Linda Dickerson Hartsock , founder of Blackstone LaunchPad at Syracuse Libraries, entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises adjunct faculty member in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management  and strategic initiatives advisor, Syracuse University Libraries .

The interdisciplinary course and the open-call design competition is open to undergraduate and graduate students from across the University, including students studying in the InclusiveU program, and it is sponsored by Syracuse University Libraries. “It’s a unique program,” says Carr. “To my knowledge, Intelligence ++ is the only integrated design and innovation incubator in which students from a program such as InclusiveU work as part of a team to develop a wide range of product ideas.”

As part of the course, students learn about steps taken at the University to help address accessibility and neurodiversity across campus. Myers says the fact that students come from a range of majors and programs helps widen the understanding of access, disability and inclusion needs and abilities.

Policy studies major Ryan Brouchard emphasizes the planned journey for his team’s innovation, AdaptEd, created with computer science student Adya Parida. (Photo by Angela Ryan)

“We’re thinking about disability, accessibility and disability language and content, as well as the possibilities [for] disability and neurodiversity. We’re designing not for disabled people, but with disabled people, so it’s really meaningful,” says Myers.

Shelstie Dastinot ’24, a fashion design major in VPA, says her perspective on disability is formed by personal experience. “I realized that we all separate ourselves from the disabled community, but we can all become disabled at any point. We are all temporarily able, is what I like to say.”

Ryan Brouchoud ’25, a policy studies major in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, says the class taught him how to think in practical and functional ways about disability needs. “I’m learning about the best way to go about making products and programs that are accessible to all but that are also feasible to create. I’m interested in creating something that fixes problems that need addressing.”

Xiaochao Yu ’25, an interior design major in VPA, spoke to both disabled and non-disabled individuals as he worked on his project, and found the groups had similar concerns regarding public study spaces. “They expressed that the environment was distracting both visually and acoustically. I decided to create a product that would provide the privacy students were looking for.”

His project, Portable Sensory Enclosure , uses low-budget structural elements and materials to create temporary, movable barriers that offer more privacy and acoustic and visual improvements for use in public study areas.

The other winning projects were:

Four members of the team of UpliftU present how their website makes reporting incidents of bias and accessibility barriers easier, with a built-in feedback and assessment system. (Photo by Angela Ryan)

Uplift U,  a website that allows reporting on barriers to accessibility, such as the lack of an access ramp at a building, and issues and incidents related to diversity and inclusion, such as a bias situation.

It was created by InclusiveU students Tanner Knox Belge ’27 an undeclared major; Devin Braun ’27, a food studies major; Sean Bleaking ’24, a food studies major and Arturo Tomas Cruz Avellan ’27, an undeclared major; along with Jasmine Rood, ’27, a design studies major in VPA, Caitlin Kennedy Espiritu ’25, a public communications major in the Newhouse School of Public Communications, and Megan Gajewski ’27, a fashion design major in VPA.

Cuse Up , an app to help InclusiveU students more easily discover social groups and campus activities, created by students Tojyea Matally ’27, a communication design major and Faith Mahoney ’26, an industrial and interaction design major, both studying in VPA.

Shelstie , a line of sustainable, adaptive clothing featuring bright colors and Haitian-inspired looks, designed by Dastinot.

AdaptEd , an educational tech platform that uses AI-powered software to support varied learning styles, created by Brouchoud and Adya Parida ’25, a computer science major in the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

Echo Classroom , a platform that provides resources to aid in lesson interpretation, developed by Alexandra Gustave ’24 and Charlotte Chu ’26, fashion design majors in VPA.

VocaLink, a concept by graduate data science students Dhruv Shah and Sampada Regmi, offers computer-based vocational training. (Photo by Angela Ryan)

VocaLink , a computer-based vocational training and interactive learning tool, developed by graduate students Dhruv Shah ’25 and Sampada Regmi ’24, who are both students in the applied data science program at the School of Information Studies.

Judges were Matthew Van Ryn, a Syracuse attorney; Hanah Ehrenreich, a development associate at Jowonio School who also advises entrepreneurs; Brianna Howard ’20, G’21, founder of Faithful Works virtual assistant and grant writing services;  and Gianfranco Zaccai ’70, H’09, co-founder and chief designer of Continuum Innovation, who helped establish the program through a gift to Syracuse University Libraries from the Zaccai Foundation for Augmented Intelligence .

Team members, faculty and judges gathered to celebrate the innovations presented at the 2024 Intelligence++ Showcase. (Photo by Marilyn Hesler)

Diane Stirling

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Eric martin feltham is the 2024 winner of the yale sociology department’s marvin b. sussman dissertation prize, for his dissertation “cognizing social networks”.

Social network analysis has provided foundational insights into the nature of human sociality and has been used to understand and improve diverse policy outcomes.  A common goal of research in this area has been to construct an accurate measure of the social network by ascertaining how everyone in a defined population is connected.  However, it is clear that individuals reason not only about their own relationships, but also form beliefs about the social relationships among others in their broader community, even those to whom they may not themselves be directly connected. 

Eric Feltham’s groundbreaking 2023 dissertation about such “cognitive social networks” dramatically advances the scientific frontier in this area.   In the past, this type of data, which has only very rarely been collected, has been constructed exhaustively, by asking each individual about the relationship between other individuals in the group. Consequently, this approach has only been feasible for very small networks, usually of less than 30 individuals and typically in stylized settings (e.g., classrooms).

Instead, Feltham develops a general approach to sample each person’s “slice,” making the study of individual perceptions of ties in larger networks more tractable.  He then deploys this approach to collect data data from over 10,000 people in 82 villages in Copán, a remote region of Honduras, to investigate the qualities that make for more or less accurate social beliefs.  And he investigates whether people who conceive of networks more accurately (as compared to a ground-truth network that was also mapped, i.e., by asking i and j directly if they where in fact friends) are more able to acquire novel information that was experimentally introduced to randomly chosen people within the village networks.

Feltham finds, for example, that women, middle-aged people, and more educated people have higher accuracy.  Moreover, he finds that the accuracy of individuals in reporting the existence of ties varies systematically with the properties of those ties, and that observers are better able to know the existence of ties that are among non-kin, among popular individuals, and among people of dissimilar age or gender.  Finally, he shows that people with more accurate social perceptions have better access to knowledge regarding novel information experimentally introduced into the villages through social channels.

In sum, this remarkable dissertation involved: advancing the theory of social cognition, developing new methods for sampling people’s perceptions of networks, devising the instruments to collect the data in the field, supervising a large data collection effort in Honduras, and deploying demanding methods to analyze the data.  All this effort was in the service of an important project: the documentation of the ways people internalize social reality and map social networks in their minds.  Such an ability is relevant to many sociological processes, from social contagion to social efficacy to social capital.  People cognize the social networks around them with varying degrees of accuracy and in biased ways that have implications for how they affect, and are affected by, the social world.

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News Roundup Spring 2024

CEGE Spring Graduation Celebration and Order of the Engineer

Forty-seven graduates of the undergraduate and grad student programs (pictured above) in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering took part in the Order of the Engineer on graduation day. Distinguished Speakers at this departmental event included Katrina Kessler (MS EnvE 2021), Commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and student Brian Balquist. Following this event, students participated in the college-wide Commencement Ceremony at 3M Arena at Mariucci. 

UNIVERSITY & DEPARTMENT

The University of Minnesota’s Crookston, Duluth, and Rochester campuses have been awarded the Carnegie Elective Classification for Community Engagement, joining the Twin Cities (2006, 2015) and Morris campuses (2015), and making the U of M the country’s first and only university system at which every individual campus has received this selective designation. Only 368 from nearly 4,000 qualifying U.S. universities and colleges have been granted this designation.

CEGE contributed strongly to the College of Science and Engineering’s efforts toward sustainability research. CEGE researchers are bringing in over $35 million in funded research to study carbon mineralization, nature and urban areas, circularity of water resources, and global snowfall patterns. This news was highlighted in the Fall 2023 issue of  Inventing Tomorrow  (pages 10-11). https://issuu.com/inventingtomorrow/docs/fall_2023_inventing_tomorrow-web

CEGE’s new program for a one-year master’s degree in structural engineering is now accepting applicants for Fall 2024. We owe a big thanks to DAN MURPHY and LAURA AMUNDSON for their volunteer work to help curate the program with Professor JIA-LIANG LE and EBRAHIM SHEMSHADIAN, the program director. Potential students and companies interested in hosting a summer intern can contact Ebrahim Shemshadian ( [email protected] ).

BERNIE BULLERT , CEGE benefactor and MN Water Research Fund founder, was profiled on the website of the University of Minnesota Foundation (UMF). There you can read more about his mission to share clean water technologies with smaller communities in Minnesota. Many have joined Bullert in this mission. MWRF Recognizes their Generous 2024 Partners. Gold Partners: Bernie Bullert, Hawkins, Inc., Minnesota Department of Health, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and SL-serco. Silver Partners: ISG, Karl and Pam Streed, Kasco, Kelly Lange-Haider and Mark Haider, ME Simpson, Naeem Qureshi, Dr. Paul H. Boening, TKDA, and Waterous. Bronze Partners: Bruce R. Bullert; Brenda Lenz, Ph.D., APRN FNP-C, CNE; CDM Smith; Central States Water Environment Association (CSWEA MN); Heidi and Steve Hamilton; Jim “Bulldog” Sadler; Lisa and Del Cerney; Magney Construction; Sambatek; Shannon and John Wolkerstorfer; Stantec; and Tenon Systems.

After retiring from Baker-Tilly,  NICK DRAGISICH  (BCE 1977) has taken on a new role: City Council member in Lake Elmo, Minnesota. After earning his BCE from the University of Minnesota, Dragisich earned a master’s degree in business administration from the University of St. Thomas. Dragisich retired in May from his position as managing director at Baker Tilly, where he had previously served as firm director. Prior to that, he served as assistant city manager in Spokane, Washington, was the city administrator and city engineer in Virginia, Minnesota, and was mayor of Chisholm, Minnesota—all adding up to more than 40 years of experience in local government. Dragisich was selected by a unanimous vote. His current term expires in December 2024.

PAUL F. GNIRK  (Ph.D. 1966) passed away January 29, 2024, at the age of 86. A memorial service was held Saturday, February 24, at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSM&T), where he started and ended his teaching career, though he had many other positions, professional and voluntary. In 2018 Paul was inducted into the SDSM&T Hardrocker Hall of Fame, and in 2022, he was inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame, joining his mother Adeline S. Gnirk, who had been inducted in 1987 for her work authoring nine books on the history of south central South Dakota.

ROGER M. HILL  (BCE 1957) passed away on January 13, 2024, at the age of 90. His daughter, Kelly Robinson, wrote to CEGE that Roger was “a dedicated Gopher fan until the end, and we enjoyed many football games together in recent years. Thank you for everything.”

KAUSER JAHAN  (Ph.D. 1993, advised by Walter Maier), PE, is now a civil and environmental engineering professor and department head at Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering. Jahan was awarded a 3-year (2022- 2025), $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). The grant supports her project, “WaterWorks: Developing the New Generation of Workforce for Water/Wastewater Utilities,” for the development of educational tools that will expose and prepare today’s students for careers in water and wastewater utilities.

SAURA JOST  (BCE 2010, advised by Timothy LaPara) was elected to the St. Paul City Council for Ward 3. She is part of the historic group of women that make up the nation’s first all-female city council in a large city.

The 2024 ASCE Western Great Lakes Student Symposium combines several competitions for students involved in ASCE. CEGE sent a large contingent of competitors to Chicago. Each of the competition groups won awards: Ethics Paper 1st place Hans Lagerquist; Sustainable Solutions team 1st place overall in (qualifying them for the National competition in Utah in June); GeoWall 2nd place overall; Men’s Sprint for Concrete Canoe with rowers Sakthi Sundaram Saravanan and Owen McDonald 2nd place; Product Prototype for Concrete Canoe 2nd place; Steel Bridge (200 lb bridge weight) 2nd place in lightness; Scavenger Hunt 3rd place; and Aesthetics and Structural Efficiency for Steel Bridge 4th place.

Students competing on the Minnesota Environmental Engineers, Scientists, and Enthusiasts (MEESE) team earned second place in the Conference on the Environment undergraduate student design competition in November 2023. Erin Surdo is the MEESE Faculty Adviser. Pictured are NIKO DESHPANDE, ANNA RETTLER, and SYDNEY OLSON.

The CEGE CLASS OF 2023 raised money to help reduce the financial barrier for fellow students taking the Fundamentals of Engineering exam, a cost of $175 per test taker. As a result of this gift, they were able to make the exam more affordable for 15 current CEGE seniors. CEGE students who take the FE exam pass the first time at a rate well above national averages, demonstrating that CEGE does a great job of teaching engineering fundamentals. In 2023, 46 of 50 students passed the challenging exam on the first try.

This winter break, four CEGE students joined 10 other students from the College of Science and Engineering for the global seminar, Design for Life: Water in Tanzania. The students visited numerous sites in Tanzania, collected water source samples, designed rural water systems, and went on safari. Read the trip blog: http://globalblogs.cse.umn.edu/search/label/Tanzania%202024

Undergraduate Honor Student  MALIK KHADAR  (advised by Dr. Paul Capel) received honorable mention for the Computing Research Association (CRA) Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award for undergraduate students who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research.

GRADUATE STUDENTS

AKASH BHAT  (advised by William Arnold) presented his Ph.D. defense on Friday, October 27, 2023. Bhat’s thesis is “Photolysis of fluorochemicals: Tracking fluorine, use of UV-LEDs, and computational insights.” Bhat’s work investigating the degradation of fluorinated compounds will assist in the future design of fluorinated chemicals such that persistent and/or toxic byproducts are not formed in the environment.

ETHAN BOTMEN  (advised by Bill Arnold) completed his Master of Science Final Exam February 28, 2024. His research topic was Degradation of Fluorinated Compounds by Nucleophilic Attack of Organo-fluorine Functional Groups.

XIATING CHEN , Ph.D. Candidate in Water Resources Engineering at the Saint Anthony Falls Laboratory is the recipient of the 2023 Nels Nelson Memorial Fellowship Award. Chen (advised by Xue Feng) is researching eco-hydrological functions of urban trees and other green infrastructure at both the local and watershed scale, through combined field observations and modeling approaches.

ALICE PRATES BISSO DAMBROZ  has been a Visiting Student Researcher at the University of Minnesota since last August, on a Doctoral Dissertation Research Award from Fulbright. Her CEGE advisor is Dr. Paul Capel. Dambroz is a fourth year Ph.D. student in Soil Science at Universidade Federal de Santa Maria in Brazil, where she studies with her adviser Jean Minella. Her research focuses on the hydrological monitoring of a small agricultural watershed in Southern Brazil, which is located on a transition area between volcanic and sedimentary rocks. Its topography, shallow soils, and land use make it prone to runoff and erosion processes.

Yielding to people in crosswalks should be a very pedestrian topic. Yet graduate student researchers  TIANYI LI, JOSHUA KLAVINS, TE XU, NIAZ MAHMUD ZAFRI  (Dept.of Urban and Regional Planning at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology), and Professor Raphael Stern found that drivers often do not yield to pedestrians, but they are influenced by the markings around a crosswalk. Their work was picked up by the  Minnesota Reformer.

TIANYI LI  (Ph.D. student advised by Raphael Stern) also won the Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation (DDET) Fellowship for the third time! Li (center) and Stern (right) are pictured at the Federal Highway Administration with Latoya Jones, the program manager for the DDET Fellowship.

The Three Minute Thesis Contest and the Minnesota Nice trophy has become an annual tradition in CEGE. 2023’s winner was  EHSANUR RAHMAN , a Ph.D. student advised by Boya Xiong.

GUANJU (WILLIAM) WEI , a Ph.D. student advised by Judy Yang, is the recipient of the 2023 Heinz G. Stefan Fellowship. He presented his research entitled Microfluidic Investigation of the Biofilm Growth under Dynamic Fluid Environments and received his award at the St. Anthony Falls Research Laboratory April 9. The results of Wei's research can be used in industrial, medical, and scientific fields to control biofilm growth.

BILL ARNOLD  stars in an award-winning video about prairie potholes. The Prairie Potholes Project film was made with the University of Delaware and highlights Arnold’s NSF research. The official winners of the 2024 Environmental Communications Awards Competition Grand Prize are Jon Cox and Ben Hemmings who produced and directed the film. Graduate student Marcia Pacheco (CFANS/LAAS) and Bill Arnold are the on-screen stars.

Four faculty from CEGE join the Center for Transportation Studies Faculty and Research Scholars for FY24–25:  SEONGJIN CHOI, KETSON ROBERTO MAXIMIANO DOS SANTOS, PEDRAM MORTAZAVI,  and  BENJAMIN WORSFOLD . CTS Scholars are drawn from diverse fields including engineering, planning, computer science, environmental studies, and public policy.

XUE FENG  is coauthor on an article in  Nature Reviews Earth and Environment . The authors evaluate global plant responses to changing rainfall regimes that are now characterized by fewer and larger rainfall events. A news release written at Univ. of Maryland can be found here: https://webhost.essic. umd.edu/april-showers-bring-mayflowers- but-with-drizzles-or-downpours/ A long-running series of U of M research projects aimed at improving stormwater quality are beginning to see practical application by stormwater specialists from the Twin Cities metro area and beyond. JOHN GULLIVER has been studying best practices for stormwater management for about 16 years. Lately, he has focused specifically on mitigating phosphorous contamination. His research was highlighted by the Center for Transportation Studies.

JIAQI LI, BILL ARNOLD,  and  RAYMOND HOZALSKI  published a paper on N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) precursors in Minnesota rivers. “Animal Feedlots and Domestic Wastewater Discharges are Likely Sources of N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) Precursors in Midwestern Watersheds,” Environmental Science and Technology (January 2024) doi: 10.1021/acs. est.3c09251

ALIREZA KHANI  contributed to MnDOT research on Optimizing Charging Infrastructure for Electric Trucks. Electric options for medium- and heavy-duty electric trucks (e-trucks) are still largely in development. These trucks account for a substantial percentage of transportation greenhouse gas emissions. They have greater power needs and different charging needs than personal EVs. Proactively planning for e-truck charging stations will support MnDOT in helping to achieve the state’s greenhouse gas reduction goals. This research was featured in the webinar “Electrification of the Freight System in Minnesota,” hosted by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Transportation Studies. A recording of the event is now available online.

MICHAEL LEVIN  has developed a unique course for CEGE students on Air Transportation Systems. It is the only class at UMN studying air transportation systems from an infrastructure design and management perspective. Spring 2024 saw the third offering of this course, which is offered for juniors, seniors, and graduate students.

Research Professor  SOFIA (SONIA) MOGILEVSKAYA  has been developing international connections. She visited the University of Seville, Spain, November 13–26, 2023, where she taught a short course titled “Fundamentals of Homogenization in Composites.” She also met with the graduate students to discuss collaborative research with Prof. Vladislav Mantic, from the Group of Continuum Mechanics and Structural Analysis at the University of Seville. Her visit was a part of planned activities within the DIAGONAL Consortium funded by the European Commission. CEGE UMN is a partner organization within DIAGONAL, represented by CEGE professors Mogilevskaya and Joseph Labuz. Mantic will visit CEGE summer 2024 to follow up on research developments and discuss plans for future collaboration and organization of short-term exchange visits for the graduate students from each institution. 

DAVID NEWCOMB  passed away in March. He was a professor in CEGE from 1989–99 in the area of pavement engineering. Newcomb led the research program on asphalt materials characterization. He was the technical director of Mn/ROAD pavement research facility, and he started an enduring collaboration with MnDOT that continues today. In 2000, he moved from Minnesota to become vice-president for Research and Technology at the National Asphalt Pavement Association. Later he moved to his native Texas, where he was appointed to the division head of Materials and Pavement at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, a position from which he recently retired. He will be greatly missed.

PAIGE NOVAK  won Minnesota ASCE’s 2023 Distinguished Engineer of the Year Award for her contributions to society through her engineering achievements and professional experiences.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced ten inaugural (NSF) Regional Innovation Engines awards, with a potential $1.6 billion investment nationally over the next decade. Great Lakes ReNEW is led by the Chicago-based water innovation hub,  Current,  and includes a team from the University of Minnesota, including PAIGE NOVAK. Current will receive $15 mil for the first two years, and up to $160 million over ten years to develop and grow a water-focused innovation engine in the Great Lakes region. The project’s ambitious plan is to create a decarbonized circular “blue economy” to leverage the region’s extraordinary water resources to transform the upper Midwest—Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Brewing one pint of beer generates seven pints of wastewater, on average. So what can you do with that wastewater?  PAIGE NOVAK  and her team are exploring the possibilities of capturing pollutants in wastewater and using bacteria to transform them into energy.

BOYA XIONG  has been selected as a recipient of the 2024 40 Under 40 Recognition Program by the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists. The award was presented at the 2024 AAEES Awards Ceremony, April 11, 2024, at the historic Howard University in Washington, D.C. 

JUDY Q. YANG  received a McKnight Land-Grant Professorship Award. This two-year award recognizes promising assistant professors and is intended to advance the careers of individuals who have the potential to make significant contributions to their departments and their scholarly fields. 

Professor Emeritus CHARLES FAIRHURST , his son CHARLES EDWARD FAIRHURST , and his daughter MARGARET FAIRHURST DURENBERGER were on campus recently to present Department Head Paige Novak with a check for $25,000 for the Charles Fairhurst Fellowship in Earth Resources Engineering in support of graduate students studying geomechanics. The life of Charles Fairhurst through a discussion with his children is featured on the Engineering and Technology History Wiki at https://ethw.org/Oral-History:Charles_Fairhurst#00:00:14_INTRODUCTION

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