Westerhoff named chair of engineering department

<p>Professor Paul Westerhoff has been named chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in ASU’s Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering.</p><separator></separator><p>He will lead a growing department in which half the faculty members have been hired in the past five years. The undergraduate enrollment has grown from about 350 to almost 600 students in that same time, and the department expects to award 118 undergraduate degrees this year, more than double the number five years ago.</p><separator></separator><p>Westerhoff says his goal is to continue increasing the numbers of faculty, largely to “address critical issues related to sustainable civil infrastructure systems.”</p><separator></separator><p>Westerhoff came to ASU in 1995 and became a full professor in 2007. His research focus is on water quality and treatment. He has led the department’s environmental and water faculty group for the past six years.</p><separator></separator><p>“His demonstrated abilities in leading research and mentoring students will bring even stronger leadership to the engineering school,” says Deirdre Meldrum, dean of the school.</p><separator></separator><p>Meldrum cites Westerhoff’s awards for research on the environmental implications of nanotechnology and studies of inorganic and organic contaminants in water.</p><separator></separator><p>He has earned some of the leading research awards from the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Water Environment Federation.</p><separator></separator><p>More than 65 of his research articles have been published in peer-reviewed science and engineering journals, and he has made more than 200 conference presentations.</p><separator></separator><p>Westerhoff earned a bachelor’s degree from Lehigh University, a master’s degree from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and a doctorate from the University of Colorado-Boulder.</p>