Staff member Sarah Curylo and Drs. Peter England, H. Gene Hawkins, Jr., Stefan Hurlebaus and Gretchen Miller of the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering at Texas A&M University, have been awarded College of Engineering excellence awards.
Curylo, administrative coordinator, received the Staff Excellence Award. She joined the department in May 2013 and has since received two departmental excellence awards. Before joining the department, she worked in Engineering Human Resources.
England, instructional associate professor, was awarded the Instructional Faculty Teaching Award. England began his teaching career teaching composition and literature in a college English program, but soon realized that technical writing and engineering communication were far more interesting. He has been promoted twice within the department. England now spends most of his efforts making sure civil engineering students work on writing and speaking situations that reflect what they will be doing after graduation. His most recent research deals with identifying characteristics of effective educational screencasts.
Hawkins, associate professor and Williams Brothers Construction Development Professor, received the William Keeler Memorial Fund for Teaching. He holds a joint appointment as a research engineer with the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) and serves as an associate director of the Southwest Region University Transportation Center. He received three civil engineering degrees from Texas A&M. Before joining the Texas A&M faculty in 2004, Hawkins worked at TTI for 18 years.
Hurlebaus, professor, received the Williams Brothers Construction Engineering Fellow Award for outstanding engineering contributions. He joined Texas A&M in 2005. He worked for three years as the head of the adaptive structures group at the Institute of Applied and Experimental Mechanics at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. His research has directly impacted the safety and reliability of infrastructure through better diagnostic techniques, novel mitigation measures to prevent failures due to fatigue and fracture and smart structures to prevent damages from extreme events.
Miller, assistant professor, received the Dean of Engineering Excellence Award. She teaches fluid dynamics and groundwater engineering. She specializes in ecohydrology and groundwater sustainability, focusing on the interactions between groundwater, soil moisture, and vegetation and their implications for managing water resources in semi-arid climates. Her current work aims to better understand groundwater dependent ecosystems and their response to changes in groundwater availability and to improve methods of artificial groundwater recharge, such as aquifer storage and recovery systems.
Recipients received their award at the annual banquet on May 3.