Faculty and Staff
Department Leadership
D. V. “Vaughan” Griffiths
Department Head and Professor
Focus areas include: Foundation analysis and design; Slope stability analysis; Soil mechanics; Finite element modeling and Risk assessment in civil and geotechnical engineering.
vgriffit@mines.edu
Jonathan “Josh” Sharp
Associate Department Head and Professor
Focus areas: Microbiology of natural and engineered systems; Sustainable water treatment and Watershed biogeochemistry.
jsharp@mines.edu
Academic Faculty
Eric Anderson
Associate Professor, Associate Director, Hydrologic Science & Engineering Program.
Focus areas include: Hydrodynamic Modeling; Coastal Processes; Limnology; Physical Oceanography; Ice Dynamics and Atmosphere-Surface Water Interaction.
ejanderson@mines.edu
Christopher Bellona
Associate Professor
Focus areas include: Membrane processes; Fate of organic contaminants in water and wastewater treatment; Potable water reuse; Advanced oxidation for the destruction of organic contaminants and Remediation of contaminated sites.
cbellona@mines.edu
Tzahi Cath
Professor
Focus areas include: Brackish water and seawater desalination; Water and wastewater treatment engineering; Potable water reuse and Energy recovery in water treatment.
tcath@mines.edu
Linda Figueroa
Professor, Jointly Appointed, Civil and Environmental Engineering and Mining Engineering.
Focus areas include: Microbially mediated radionuclide and metals removal; Biotransformation of nitrogen; Application of molecular tools and Water and waste treatment.
lfiguero@mines.edu
Andres Guerra
Teaching Professor
Innovative approaches to educate Colorado School of Mines students about Civil Engineering applications in geotechnical and structural engineering, land development, construction practices, risk assessment and optimization.
aguerra@mines.edu
Reza Hedayat
Associate Professor
Focus areas include: Geotechnical Engineering; Rock and Fracture Mechanics; Underground Construction and Tunneling; Applied Geophysics and Hydraulic Fracturing.
hedayat@mines.edu
Christopher Higgins
AMAX Distinguished Chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Professor,
Focus areas include: Environmental organic chemistry; inorganic/organic contaminant fate and transport; contaminant bioaccumulation; perfluorochemicals and nanoparticles.
chiggins@mines.edu
Jeffrey A. Holley
Teaching Associate Professor
Focus areas include: Engineering mechanics; Environmental studies; Civil infrastructure design and Storm water management/quality enhancement.
jholley@mines.edu
Kristoph Kinzli
Teaching Professor
Focus areas include: River mechanics; Stream rehabilitation; Water resources; Agricultural water use; Fisheries biology; Engineering teaching pedagogy and Active learning.
kkinzli@mines.edu
Amy Landis
Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Quantitative sustainability of renewable fuels; biobased products and plastics and healthcare. Developing new sustainability tools in Life Cycle Assessment, industrial ecology & systems analysis.
amylandis@mines.edu
Hongyan Liu
Teaching Professor
Focus areas include: Engineering mechanics, Structural analysis and design and Engineering materials.
Research interests are structural engineering and earthquake engineering.
hyliu@mines.edu
Ning Lu
Professor
Focus areas include: Soil physical phenomena including fluid flow, chemical transport, heat transfer, stress, and deformation; Unifying atomic-scale potentials/inter-particle forces/engineering-scale stresses in soils; Groundwater hydrology; Unsaturated soil mechanics; Expansive soils and Environmental geotechnics.
ninglu@mines.edu
John McCray
Professor
Focus areas include: Contaminant hydrology; Subsurface remediation; Vadose-zone hydrology; Watershed hydrology; PFAS investigations; Hydrologic modeling; Stormwater reclamation using green infrastructure and Soil-based wastewater treatment.
jmccray@mines.edu
Michael Mooney
Grewcock Distinguished Chair, Professor,
Director, Center for Underground Construction & Tunneling
Focus areas: Tunnel design; Construction in soil and soil/rock conditions; Geotechnical/Geostructural engineering and Geoconstruction.
mmooney@mines.edu
Junko Munakata Marr
Professor
Focus areas include: Microbial communities in groundwater and water
treatment systems; Application of molecular biology techniques to environmental systems and Engineering education.
junko@mines.edu
Chelsea L. Panos
Teaching Associate Professor
Teaching courses in fluid mechanics, hydrology, and environmental engineering. Passionate about engineering learning and effective teaching practices. Not involved in a research project.
cpanos@mines.edu
Shiling Pei
Professor
Focus areas include: Extreme hazard mitigation; Structural reliability; Modern timber structural systems; Structural dynamics and Earthquake engineering.
spei@mines.edu
Cara Phillips
Teaching Assistant Professor
Focus areas include: Structural analysis and building design with steel, concrete, masonry and wood; Lateral load design and detailing and Post-installed concrete and masonry anchorage.
caraphil@mines.edu
Susan Reynolds
Teaching Professor
Focus area: Structural analysis and design; Historic preservation technology and Sustainable/integrated design approaches for buildings.
reynolds@mines.edu
Yangming Shi
Assistant Professor
Focus areas include: Construction Automation; Construction Informatics; Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (AI); Disaster Visualization and Human Factors.
yangming.shi@mines.edu
Syd Slouka
Teaching Assistant Professor
Focus areas include: Active learning pedagogy and psychology of learning. Teaching interests in statics, soil mechanics and mine ventilation.
sslouka@mines.edu
John Spear
Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering and Quantitative Biosciences & Engineering.
Focus areas: Environmental microbiology; Geobiology; Metals bioremediation; Subsurface microbiology; Cave and mine microbiology; Environmental policy—impact analysis (NEPA) and Reclamation & restoration.
jspear@mines.edu
Timothy Strathmann
Professor
Focus areas: Catalysts and advanced materials for water and energy applications; Hydrothermal biomass conversion technologies; Wastewater and waste solid valorization; Aquatic fate and treatment of contaminants of emerging concern and Life cycle analysis-directed design of environmental technologies.
strthmnn@mines.edu
Lori Tunstall
Assistant Professor
Focus areas include: Cementitious materials; Concrete durability; Frost damage and Mechanisms of air entrainment.
ltunstall@mines.edu
Alexandra Wayllace
Teaching Professor
Focus areas: Designing and conducting experiments to measure different soil properties for saturated and unsaturated soils.
awayllac@mines.edu
Campus Leadership
Paul C. Johnson
President, Colorado School of Mines, and Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Chemical fate and transport in the environment with emphasis on contaminated soil and groundwater monitoring, remediation, and risk assessment and subsurface vapor migration to indoor air.
presoffice@mines.edu
Terri Hogue
Dean, Earth and Society Programs, and Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Surface hydrology; catchment response to wildfire, urbanization and climate variability; watershed modeling, parameter estimation, remote sensing, and field studies.
thogue@mines.edu
Research Faculty
Shilai Hao
Research Assistant Professor
Focus areas: Environmental Chemistry, PFAS Treatment and Analysis
shao@mines.edu
Tissa Illangasekare
Research Professor,
Director, Center for Experimental Study of Subsurface Environmental Processes.
Focus areas: Groundwater and vadose zone hydrology; Transport and fate of chemicals; Aquifer remediation; Numerical modeling; Flow in snow, land-atmospheric interaction, soil and environmental sensing and Carbon storage.
tillanga@mines.edu
Johan Vanneste
Research Associate Professor
Focus areas: Separation Processes and Desalination
vanneste@mines.edu
Jointly Appointed Faculty
Alina Handorean
Teaching Professor Engineering, Design, and Society
Environmental Engineering (Drinking Water, Bioaerosols); Chemistry; Cancer Biology; Pedagogy; Teaching User-Centered Design, Communication Skills, and Teamwork in Cornerstone Classes.
ahandorean@mines.edu
Serveh Kamravah
Assistant Professor
Petroleum Engineering,
Machine Learning;
Fluid Dynamics; Energy Storage Systems.
kamrava@mines.edu
Adrienne Marshall
Assistant Professor, Geology and Geological Engineering
Snow hydrology; Ecohydrology in discontinuous permafrost regions; Hydropower in the energy system; Climate change; Computational approaches including: spacial data, data science, physically based hydrologic models, statistical models, and high performance computing.
adriennemarshall@mines.edu
Pejman Tahmasebi
Associate Professor
Petroleum Engineering,
Modeling of porous media using data analytics; Statistical modeling for data integration and uncertainty; Granular particles for geomechanical applications; Computational modeling and multiple-point statistics; Machine learning: physics-guided AI; Subsurface systems (energy, water, storage) modeling.
tahmasebi@mines.edu
Jessica Smith
Professor, Engineering, Design, and Society
Ethnography; energy ethics; engineering studies; corporate social responsibility; equity and engineering education.
jmsmith@mines.edu
Emeritus Faculty
Bruce Honeyman
Professor Emeritus
Focus areas: Environmental Radiochemistry and Surface Chemistry
bhoneyma@mines.edu
Joe Crocker
Teaching Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Structural materials and design; geotechnical and structural engineering; curriculum development.
jcrocker@mines.edu
Panos Kiousis
Associate Professor Emeritus
Computational Methods and Finite Elements
pkiousis@mines.edu
Robert Siegrist
Professor Emeritus
Soil and Water Reclamation/Remediation
rsiegris@mines.edu
Ronald Cohen
Associate Professor Emeritus
Microbiology and Mine Reclamation
rcohen@mines.edu
Department Staff
D V "Vaughan" Griffiths
Department Head
Jonathan "Josh" Sharp
Associate Department Head
Kimberly Brock
Department Manager
Mona Lisa Lucero
Program Assistant
Cherie Nash
Administrative Assistant
Kate Spangler
Laboratory Coordinator
CASA Undergrad Advising
Dana Morrison
Academic Advisor A-G
Lindsey Daly
Academic Advisor H-N
Sadie Downs
Academic Advisor O-Z