Civil and Environmental Engineering

  • Ellis, Brian (‘09 - ‘11)

    Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Brian’s research is focused on geologic carbon sequestration in deep saline formations as a means to mitigate carbon emissions to the atmosphere. He is interested in understanding the complex geochemical reactions that will occur after carbon dioxide injection. In particular, he is interested in how these reactions will impact the sealing ability of caprocks and the long-term flow characteristics of the injection formation. His research combines geochemical modeling and experimental work to investigate these CO2-water-rock interactions.

  • Diao, Minghui (‘11 - ‘13)

    Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Minghui’s research focuses on the use of VCSEL (Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser) hygrometer located on the NSF Gulfstream-V research aircraft to measure water vapor around the globe, analyze how cirrus cloud forms and help improve the cloud parameterizations in climate models. The Hiaper Pole-to-Pole Campaign (HIPPO) Global campaign ended in September of 2011.  It was the first flight campaign ever to cover from North Pole to South Pole and from surface to the upper troposphere in all four seasons, measuring all types of greenhouse gases, including H2O, CO2, CH4. This was the first time that a zoom into the atmosphere layers was done to get a snapshot of how greenhouse gases are distributed in the atmosphere.

  • Deng, Hang (‘11 - ‘13)

    Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Hang’s current research focuses on reactive transport in fractured porous media, to investigate the roles of mineralogical heterogeneity and brine compositions in changing the hydrodynamics of the fractured porous media. It will provide important insights on evaluations of caprock integrity, thereby the performance of geological storage sites of CO2.

  • Dalin, Carole (‘12 - ‘14)

    Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Carole is interested in water, food security, and climate issues. Her work focuses on the use of water resources for food, by quantifying and analyzing the global virtual water trade network and its evolution. Taking into account the time and space variability of agricultural water use efficiency, she is able to identify key importers and exporters of water and to assess whether international food trade leads to an increasingly efficient use of global water resources.

  • Court, Benjamin (‘10 - ‘11)

    Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Ben is a fifth year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He is working with Professor Michael Celia on CO2 Capture and Sequestration (CCS) in deep saline formations.

    Ben’s early work focused on CO2 sequestration safety, quantifying CO2 and brine leakage risk through abandoned wells. He modeled different potential leakage scenarios following a large-scale CO2 injection in the Wabamun lake area of the Alberta Basin (Canada).

    His current work considers both the limitations of simplified CO2 injection models and approaches to address CCS implementation barriers. First Ben investigates how the variability in certain formation characteristics impacts CO2 plume modeling. The results of this study will allow a better determination of where and when simplified models could be applicable or improved. Ben has also been working on the challenges to large-scale CCS implementation with a focus on technical, regulatory, and public acceptance barriers. Examining these collectively has allowed him and his collaborators from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to identify several promising integrated solutions. Specifically Ben is investigating potential synergies to tackle both the additional water demands of CO2 capture, as well as CO2 sequestration pressure management challenges.

    Prior to coming to Princeton, Ben received his Master’s in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Bristol (UK) after being raised in France.

  • Steingart, Daniel

    Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Research in the Steingart group primarily focuses on Energy storage; metallurgical process efficiency; low cost long cycle life batteries; discrete power electronics; printed, flexible, stretchable batteries; in situ electrochemistry; power – energy control circuits and hybrid design.

  • Peters, Catherine

    Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Dr. Peters works in the areas of environmental chemistry, geochemistry, and reactive transport. She is particularly interested in reaction kinetics, and her work typically combines laboratory experimentation with mathematical modeling to infer reaction rates for a variety of environmental systems. She and her research group are currently studying the geochemical reactions that are important for geologic sequestration of CO2 in deep saline aquifers. She is particularly interested in the kinetics of these reactions and determining which reactions are likely to be important on the time-scales operative for CO2 storage. She has also addressed research problems involving contamination of water and soils with organic pollutants, particularly non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) containing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

  • Spokas, Kasparas (‘16 - ‘18)

    Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Kasparas is a Ph.D. candidate in the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department studying processes occurring during the flow of reactive fluids through subsurface rock fractures. The migration of reactive fluids through rock fractures remains a large risk associated with many industries. Kasparas’ focus is on investigating processes, such as mineral dissolution, that impact the leakage of fluids through fractures in the context of carbon capture and sequestration, a climate mitigation technology that sequesters power plant emissions. In addition, he is interested in studying the challenges of developing low-carbon energy systems and grids from an economic and public policy perspective. Specifically, he is interested in investigating how different segments of low-carbon energy systems interact with one another, and how policy can maximize the overall efficiency of the system.

  • Michiels, Tim (‘16 - ‘18)

    Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Tim Michiels is a PhD candidate in the Form Finding Lab where he researches the behavior of shell structures subjected to natural disasters such as earthquakes. He develops methods to design resilient shell structures using local soil. Earth construction has historically been one of the most widely employed construction materials in the world, but has largely fallen out of use in North-America and Europe over the past century. It does, however, have tremendous potential as a building material today, when energy conservation in construction is becoming increasingly critical. Earth is an abundant natural resource that can typically be amassed on site or from a nearby location, often free of cost or for a limited transportation fee. Thus, earthen buildings have practically no ecological footprint, in contrast to those built with more typically employed materials. The goal of Tim’s PhD is to prove that earth is incredibly durable and earthen buildings can be designed to withstand earthquakes. Tim is furthermore convinced that by studying and preserving constructions from the past, we can improve the built environment of the future. Thus besides his focus on shells made from sustainable materials, he also focuses on the analysis of historic structures.