Profile Summary

My overall academic/consulting background and research/teaching/outreach interests are inter-disciplinary, covering facets of geotechnical, geological, environmental, transportation, and sustainable energy engineering. I conduct research in energy geotechnics (wind energy site civil, geotechnical, and structural design; evaluation of campus- and district-scale geothermal heating and cooling systems); the beneficial reuse of industrial byproducts (e.g., cement kiln dust, coal-combustion residuals, and lime for subgrade improvement and cementitious stabilization of pavement layers); life cycle environmental analysis of geo systems; remediation of contaminated sites; and heat transfer in porous media (soil and rock). I developed these interests as a consulting/industry engineer for 13 years at prominent engineer-procure-construct firms and a Fortune 50 company and through discussions and interactions with practitioners participating in my nationally/internationally attended engineering short course programs. Examples of recent, current, and planned research efforts include:

• Foundation response and soil stress dissipation for wind turbine generators at two instrumented field sites

• Installation and monitoring of fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing (FO-DTS) networks for campus- and district-scale geothermal installations (geothermal exchange and deep, direct-use systems)

• Performance-based landfill liner design

• Emission measurements of CH₄, H₂S, volatile fatty acids (VFAs), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from landfill covers constructed with typical cover systems and co-extruded ethylene-vinyl alcohol (EVOH) geomembrane at operating landfills

• Characterization of cementitiously stabilized layers for use in pavement design and analysis 

• Thermal conduction mechanisms and laboratory measurements of unsaturated soil for sustainable energy practice, including thermal conductivity dryout curves

• In situ thermal response testing of vertical geothermal exchange wells

• Assessment of coal-combustion residual waste impoundments and fill sites

• Evaluation and management of landfilled Per- and Poly-Fluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in the State of Wisconsin

• Mechanisms and design of shallow, lightly loaded solar piles for freeze-thaw and wet-dry cycling conditions