Drexel University

Drexel University is located in the University City neighborhood of Philadelphia, the nation's fifth largest city. Philadelphia is currently seeing an immense wave of development (over 40 high-rise residential or office structures are underway or planned) and thus provides a unique backdrop for a site themed on urban growth. As the only urban university in the nation to host a combined Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering (CAEE), Drexel provides an ideal setting for the REU site.

Drexel is classified as "research intensive" (Carnegie) and is ranked among the nation's top tier universities in the latest edition of "America's Best Colleges" by U.S. News and World Reports. Members of the CAEE Department conduct federal, state, and industry-funded research on a broad array of topics related to urban engineering. Joint appointments within the college have led to a significant number of cross-disciplinary projects related to civil engineering. The CAEE department is affiliated with the Drexel Intelligent Infrastructure Institute (DI3) and with the Geosynthetic Research Institute. Departmental research facilities include portions of the new Bossone Research Enterprise Building with over 150,000 square-feet of interdisciplinary research laboratory space; The Fredrick Hess Engineering Laboratories, with a strong wall, MTS hydraulics system, shaking table, multiaxial tension test device, and a pilot-scale facility for large geotechnical engineering experiments; the Richard E. Woodring Laboratories, with an automated cyclic triaxial testing device, ring shear apparatus and a host of geosynthetics and materials engineering test equipment; the Nesbitt Hall Environmental Engineering Laboratories, which are equipped for physical, chemical and biological testing of water and waste samples, and for bench and small pilot scale unit operations experiments; and the DI3 laboratories, which contains a “phenomenological” experimental model with controlled load input systems, extensive instrumentation, data acquisition and online monitoring capabilities.