Environmental Engineering

A member of the CU faculty since 1996, McKnight has served the CU community in a number of departments including the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering; the Environmental Studies Program, INSTAAR; the Center for Water, Earth Science and Technology; Hydrologic Sciences Graduate Program; and the Mountain Research Station...

Scientists have long known that ultraviolet light can kill pathogens on surfaces and in air and water. UV robots are used to disinfect empty hospital rooms, buses and trains; UV bulbs in HVAC systems eliminate pathogens in building air; and UV lamps kill bugs in drinking water. Perhaps you have...

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought increased attention to indoor air quality and the effect that ventilation has on reducing disease transmission in indoor spaces. A recent infrastructure survey reported that of the nearly 100,000 operating public school buildings across the U.S., more than a third have an immediate need for...

In 2020, Colorado battled the four largest wildfires in its history, leaving residents anxious for another intense wildfire season this year. But last week, fires weren’t the issue—it was their aftermath. When heavy rains fell over the burn scar from the 2020 Cameron Peak fire, they triggered flash flooding and...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced $337,616 to the University of Colorado Boulder to create software tools to quantify and predict the effects of synthetic microorganisms on local, native and microbial communities. Last week, EPA announced $3,041,583 in funding to five institutions to develop science-based approaches to evaluate...

A University of Colorado Boulder team is part of a major international effort to sample surfaces and the air on mass transit vehicles. Two major international journals have published articles on the research, which included teams from CU Boulder engineering gathering samples on RTD light rail cars and at stations...

School may be out for summer, but cleaner indoor air may be here to stay in some Colorado classrooms. With support from the heating and ventilation company Carrier Global, Intel and the Colorado-based Ryan Innovation Group, engineers at CU Boulder have installed hundreds of air quality monitors in K-12 classrooms...

“If you have a water need, there’s a creative answer that we can find.” Professor Sherri Cook is researching solutions for better wastewater treatment and reuse. An assistant professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder, Cook is focused on water and...

It’s a chilly spring morning in March 2021 and campus is quiet. Dew hangs on blades of grass. Songbirds chirp from the trees, while a few students speed by on their bikes and skateboards. But while campus may seem calm, an artificial river flows underneath, holding a wealth of information...

Lab manager Dorothy Noble received the Challenge Coin Award from CU Boulder’s Department of Environmental Health and Safety, in recognition for her attention to safety, regulations and personal protective equipment (PPE) in all environmental engineering labs, while also being exceptional at day-to-day lab operations.