Faculty Research Laboratories
Research Area: The Intelligent Infrastructure Alliance is a multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary consortium of infrastructure systems stakeholders. The Alliance focuses on systems along the Mid-Atlantic such as the dense highways, railroads, mass transit, bridges, tunnels, airports, ports, river navigation, dams, water systems, power plants, power transmission, buildings, and historic monuments. Primary objectives are to explore and understand the evaluation, integration and management of the many components of a transportation system.
Research Goals: The goals of this Alliance is to foster a deeper understanding of infrastructures as complex multi-domain systems comprised of human, natural and engineered sub-systems and elements.
Faculty: Dr. A. Emin Aktan and Dr. Frank Moon
Research Area: The Sustainable Water Resource Engineering (SWRE) Laboratory at Drexel University is a collaborative environment in which students, faculty, researchers, and community partners innovate the next generation of socially, ecologically, and economically sustainable water infrastructure systems. Applied research involves field work in urban and urbanizing watersheds and the development of new cross-disciplinary modeling and analysis tools. The SWRE lab works extensively with ultra-urban green infrastructure strategies and studies the impacts of human activities and infrastructure decisions in urbanizing watersheds in countries at various level of development, with a focus on local climatic conditions.
Research Goals: The goals of the SWRE are to incorporate social/institutional factors and microclimatic dynamics into biophysical models of ecohydrologic processes in urban and urbanizing watersheds.
Faculty: Dr. Franco Montalto
Research Area: The Building, Science & Engineering Group (BSEG) is a collaborative research unit whose objective is to achieve more comprehensive and innovative approaches to sustainable building design and operation. Projects span a wide range of research areas, including: energy efficient strategies for delivering optimal indoor air quality, indoor air chemistry, smart grid, HVAC fault detection and diagnosis, Energy Conservation Measures (ECM) decision-making, and the adaptive behavior of building occupants.
Research Goals: The goal of BSEG is to pioneer innovative research in sustainable building design and operation through the effective collaboration of researchers with diverse areas of expertise.
Faculty: Dr. Patrick Gurian, Dr. Michael Waring, Dr. Jin Wen
Research Areas: The Drexel Air Resources Research Laboratory (DARRL) is a collaborative research group focused on understanding air quality indoors and out. Using state-of-the-art instrumentation, researchers in DARRL probe the chemical composition of the gas and particle phase to better understand sources, transformations, and chemical reactions of compounds suspended in the air we breathe. Outdoor research in DARRL is focused on the role of aerosol particles in air quality and climate, as well as the impact of unconventional resource development on regional air quality in Pennsylvania. Indoor DARRL research has focused on indoor generation of aerosols through a variety of chemical processes and subsequent building occupant exposure, as well as developing smart building ventilation practices. Lastly, examining the interaction between outdoor and indoor air quality is a unifying theme in DARRL's research portfolio.
Research Goals: The goal of DARRL is the full understanding of indoor and outdoor air quality to identify and design rational mitigation measures to protect human health and the environment.
Associated Faculty: Dr. Peter DeCarlo, Dr. Michael Waring
Research Area: The Water Systems & Society research group creatively addresses critical water resources management challenges in local to international trans-boundary capacities through stakeholder and decision-maker collaborations. Researchers work at the intersection of engineering and socio-economics to enhance management, adaptation, and sustainability of water resources by leveraging across the sciences. Research themes are centered on a systems-based approach, bridging models and methods across climate science, hydrology, management, the environment, economics, and policy.
Research Goals: The goal of this research group is to couple climate, hydrology, and management models and knowledge to reduce risks and promote sustainability of water resources for societal benefit.
Faculty: Dr. Paul Block