G-CEE-PHD - Civil and Environmental Engineering - PhD

The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at Duke University offers programs of study and research leading to the MS and PhD with a major in civil and environmental engineering. CEE pursues diverse research and educational activities to improve the fundamental safety, health, and quality of life in society. These activities focus on five broad areas:

1. Computational Mechanics and Scientific Computing

2. Environmental Health Engineering

3. Geomechanics and Geophysics for Energy & the Environment

4. Hydrology and Fluid Dynamics

5. Systems, Risk and Decision

Overlapping at times, these areas represent the three tracks of study offered by the department’s graduate faculty. The specific areas include engineering mechanics, computational mechanics, geo-materials and environmental geo-mechanics, engineering and environmental geophysics, structural engineering, water resources engineering, hydrology, environmental fluid dynamics, and environmental process engineering aspects of water, atmosphere, and soil pollution.

Current research in these areas focuses on new computational paradigms for complex mechanical systems, including contact, fracture, and damage problems; environmental geomechanics and geophysics; adaptive materials and structures and their use in structural dynamics; microstructured materials; deterministic and stochastic water resources and contaminant hydrology; global and regional water cycle; ocean-land-atmosphere interactions; biological and chemical aspects of pollution and its remediation in water, air, and soil.