Insight
	Innovation
	Impact

Complex Problems - Important Solutions

Civil and environmental engineers tackle complicated and challenging problems that have a major impact on individuals, communities, nations, and the world. The structures and systems they design create and sustain the conditions that allow us to flourish and prosper.

Whether the engineer is using smart materials in structural design, developing an intelligent transportation system, or optimizing an environmental restoration and long-term stewardship program, the approach must ensure reliablity and risk management.

Multi-Faceted Problems - Multidisciplinary Training

Today's engineers must draw on a wide range of disciplines to create the solutions needed for today's challenges. Whether they work within a private corporation, a public entity, or an academic setting, they will invariably work on multidisciplinary teams with other professionals from many different fields. Today's engineer must not only have a breadth and depth of expertise, but must be able to communicate effectively, provide creative solutions with vision, and adapt to ever-changing demands.

Bridging Disciplines - The Vanderbilt Edge

Building upon a foundation of civil and environmental engineering fundamentals, Vanderbilt is particularly strong in interdisciplinary training and research. Nowhere on campus is the commitment to an interdisciplinary approach stronger than in the School of Engineering. The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering is home to the first National Science Foundation program in the world that integrates reliablity and risk management education and research across many disciplines.

The department also helps facilitate the Vanderbilt Center for Enviromental Management Studies, which includes leadership of engineering and business faculty. These programs demonstrate the commitment to academic interdisciplinary research within the School of Engineering and throughout the University.

Custom-Built Curriculum

In order to equip engineers with the depth and breath of expertise they will need in the future, the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering helps students design an educational experience to fit their needs.

All candidates receive a rigorous foundation in engineering science, advanced simulation approaches, statistical techniques, system analysis, data collection and interpretation, information management, and other areas critical to sucess today. They are also able to fine-tune their training, drawing on university-wide resources and partnerships with other institutions, national laboratories, research centers, government agencies, and industries.

Our goal is to graduate engineers thoroughly grounded in engineering fundamentals, with the additional capability and flexibility to take on demanding leadership roles. Graduates of the Doctor of Philosophy program are expected to have demonstrated success in developing and performing cutting-edge research.

The tailored, multidiciplinary experience, on top of a strong foundation in engineering fundamentals, gives our students a clear competitive advantage in the marketplace, irrespective of their desired professional goals.

Professional Advancement & Rewarding Careers in Construction Management

Those who enter the field of construction management today can look forward to one of the most rewarding careers -- offering personal fulfillment, enduring service to humanity, and financial success.

In the next two decades, as the world's population grows, environmental concerns mount, the technological revolution expands and we continue space habitation, there will be an unprecedented demand for construction managers. They will be needed to plan and build and maintain the facilities essential to our civilization: bridges, dams, highways, transit systems, airports, tunnels, irrigation systems, water distribution and wastewater treatment facilities, space satellites and launching facilities, and industrial and commercial buildings.

Applying computers, robotics, lasers, global positioning systems, satellite imaging, remote sensing, geographic information systems, new materials and other high-tech developments construction managers will be expected to coordinate, and supervise the construction process, from the development through the implementation.