Donald Smith

Project balancing economics, historic preservation, community needs wins over Capstone Design Expo judges

Team J2AD Engineering won the civil and environmental engineering award at the fall 2017 Capston Design Expo. From left, Jessie Lei, Jiyoon Oh, Austin Foo and Donald Smith accept their winnings from Buzz (yellow jacket, center). (Photo: Jess Hunt-Ralston)

The winning civil and environmental engineering project at this fall 2017 Capstone Design Expo doesn’t sound especially groundbreaking on paper. But in reality, it’s the kind of work that demonstrates the power engineers have to shape — and in this case, protect — communities.

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Water, water everywhere: In the world of water research, underserved communities provide the ultimate learning ground for undergrads

Water, water everywhere: In the world of water research, underserved communities provide the ultimate learning ground for undergrads.

As if singlehandedly leading a dozen undergraduates at a time in the realm of real-world research isn’t enough of a challenge, Joe Brown ups the ante, carrying his undergrads to conduct fieldwork overseas — in a foreign-language country.

Monday, May 1, 2017

Changed: Students just back from Bolivia research trip talk about how it shifted their thinking in latest podcast

Students learn about a rainwater collector in the El Campo community from a local engineering during their Spring Break research trip to Bolivia. The trip, part of the Environmental Technology in the Developing World class, included days of collecting water samples and surveying residents as well as days learning how rural communities have developed their own water systems. (Photo: Donald Smith)

A dozen School of Civil and Environmental Engineering students will travel to New York this weekend to present their findings from a recent research trip to Bolivia. We’re not talking graduate students who’ve been doing research for months or years. No, this is a group of undergrads who spent just over a week abroad as part of a course they’ve been taking with Joe Brown called Environmental Technology in the Developing World.

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Two weeks in China and Japan teaches students about disaster engineering, Asian culture — and themselves

The International Disaster Reconnaissance Studies class on the Great Wall of China, one of their first stops during their two-week trip to China and Japan.

They climbed the Great Wall of China and explored the Forbidden City. They visited a town destroyed by an earthquake then preserved as a monument to the lives lost. They saw baby pandas and flood control systems, Japanese towns devastated by a tsunami and the Hiroshima memorial. But in the end, it was the relationships they built and an overnight summit of Mt. Fuji in Japan that etched this trip into the memories of four engineering students who traveled to China and Japan in early August.

Friday, August 26, 2016
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Map of School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Mason Building, 790 Atlantic Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332-0355
Phone: 404-894-2201
Fax: 404-894-2278