M.S. Degree Concentrations

A total of 30 credits (10 courses) are required in the Master of Science program in the Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, including the completion of at least 18 credits (six courses) within the CEEM Department. In order to complete a concentration, which would appear on a student’s transcript, M.S. students must take 3 out of the following 8 core courses and complete the requirements of their chosen concentration(s).

Core Courses:

  • ENME E4332 Finite Element Analysis I
  • CIEN E4100 Earthquake and Wind Engineering
  • CIEN E4111 Uncertainty and Risk in Infrastructure Systems
  • CIEN E4131 Principles of Construction Techniques
  • CIEN E4133 Capital Facility Planning and Financing
  • CIEN E4137 Managing Civil Infrastructure Systems
  • CIEN E4241 Geotechnical Engineering Fundamentals
  • MECE E4520 Data Science for Mechanical Systems
     

Note: Completing a formal concentration is optional. Students who do not wish to have a formal concentration must meet the minimum requirements for the M.S. degree, but they are not required to fulfill the core course requirement.

Below are the specific guidelines of each concentration:

The Construction Engineering and Management concentration prepares students to effectively deliver and manage the capital facilities and infrastructure that provide the setting for human activity and support economic development. Students would be required to take 3 out of the following 4 courses:

  • CIEN E4129 Managing Engineering and Construction Processes
  • CIEN E4130 Design of Construction Systems
  • CIEN E4131 Principles of Construction Techniques
  • CIEN E4140 Environmental, Health, and Safety Concepts in Construction Processes

The Construction Strategic Management, Entrepreneurship, and Leadership concentration prepares students to effectively lead the identification and implementation of strategic directions for entrepreneurial engineering and construction organizations. Students would be required to take 3 out of the following 4 courses:

  • CIEN E4135 Strategic Management in Engineering and Construction
  • CIEN E4136 Entrepreneurship in Engineering and Construction
  • CIEN E4142 International Construction Management: Theory and Practice
  • CIEN E6132 Leadership in Engineering and Construction

The Real Estate Development, Construction, and Finance concentration prepares students to effectively engineer, construct and finance real estate developments. Students would be required to take 3 out of the following 4 courses:

  • CIEN E4132 Prevention and Resolution of Construction Disputes
  • CIEN E4138 Real Estate Finance for Construction Management
  • CIEN E4141 Public-Private Partnerships in Global Infrastructure Development
  • CIEN E4144 Real Estate Land Development Engineering

The Engineering Mechanics concentration is intended for those students who wish to acquire a strong theoretical mechanics foundation and also those who wish to consider pursuing a PhD degree later on. The major study areas are Mechanics of Solids, Mechanics of Fluids, Computational Mechanics, Stochastic Mechanics, Structural Mechanics, Experimental Mechanics, and Geo-Mechanics. Students would be required to take 3 out of the following 4 courses:

  • ENME E4113 Advanced Mechanics of Solids
  • ENME E4202 Advanced Mechanics
  • ENME E4215 Theory of Vibrations
  • ENME E4363 Multiscale Computational Science and Engineering OR ENME E6333 Finite Element Analysis II

The Environmental Engineering and Water Resources concentration is focused on training civil engineers who are interested in engaging in solving the world’s environmental problems and contributing to the sustainable management of global water resources. Students would be required to take 3 out of the following 4 courses:

  • CIEE E4163 Sustainable Water Treatment and Reuse
  • CIEE E4252 Foundations of Environmental Engineering
  • CIEE E4257 Groundwater Contaminant Transport and Remediation
  • EAEE E4006 Field Methods for Environmental Engineering

The Forensic (Structural) Engineering concentration is designed to acquaint graduate students, as well as other young practicing professionals, with various aspects of the forensic engineering field, to provide them with the basics for the investigation of failures and understanding some of the pertinent legal aspects, and to prepare them for the eventual practice of forensic structural engineering. Students would be required to take 3 out of the following 4 courses:

  • CIEN E4132 Prevention and Resolution of Construction Disputes
  • CIEN E4134 Construction Industry Law
  • CIEN E4210 Forensic Structural Engineering
  • CIEN E4212 Structural Failures: Cases, Causes, Lessons Learned

The Geotechnical Engineering concentration focuses on a branch of civil engineering that deals with the behavior of soils, and the design and analysis of natural and man-made soil structures.  Students would be required to take 3 out of the following 4 courses:

  • CIEN E4241 Geotechnical Engineering Fundamentals
  • CIEN E4242 Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering
  • CIEN E4243 Foundation Engineering OR CIEN E4246 Earth Retaining Structures
  • CIEN E4247 Design of Large-Scale Deep Foundation Systems

The Structural Engineering concentration is designed to provide a solid educational background on the theoretical fundamentals of structural engineering, which is strong with respect to the latest and most advanced methods of analysis and design, well informed on real-life applications and, above all, open to new technology and practices. Students would be required to take 3 out of the following 4 courses:

  • CIEN E4100 Earthquake and Wind Engineering
  • CIEN E4226 Advanced Design of Steel Structures
  • CIEN E4232 Advanced Design of Concrete Structures
  • CIEN E4234 Design of Large-Scale Buildings

The Smart and Sustainable Cities concentration is intended for students who are interested in the development and monitoring of sustainable urban infrastructure and buildings. Students would be required to take 3 out of the following 4 courses:

  • ENME E6215 Principles and Applications of Sensors for Structural Health Monitoring
  • CIEN E4011 Big Data Analytics in Transportation
  • CIEE E4116 Energy Harvesting
  • EAEE E4350 Planning and Management of Urban Hydrologic Systems

The Advanced Infrastructure Materials concentration focuses on the properties, design, analysis and testing of material systems used in civil engineering. Students would be required to take 3 out of the following 4 courses:

  • CIEN E4300 Infrastructural Materials: Production, Use, Properties & Performance
  • ENME E4114 Mechanics of Fracture and Fatigue
  • ENME E4115 Micromechanics of Composite Materials
  • MSAE E4215 Mechanical Behavior of Structural Materials

The Transportation Engineering concentration is designed to prepare students to design, build, and govern the next-generation transportation ecosystem that has undergone a radical revolution due to the emergence of advanced technologies, including shared mobility, vehicle connectivity, and autonomous driving, as well as the availability of big data. Students would be required to take 3 out of the following 4 courses:

  • CIEN E4010 Transportation Engineering
  • CIEN E4011 Big Data Analytics in Transportation
  • CEOR E4011 Infrastructure Systems Optimization
  • IEOR E4418 Transportation Analytics and Logistics

The Infrastructure Engineering concentration is for students interested in managing complex infrastructure systems. Students would be required to take 3 out of the following 4 courses:

  • CIEN E4022 Bridge Design and Management
  • MECE E4210 Energy Infrastructure Planning
  • ECIA W4100 Management and Development of Water Systems
  • CEOR E4011 Infrastructure Systems Optimization

The Computational and Data-Driven Engineering Mechanics concentration is intended for students who wish to enrich their knowledge and learn the state-of-the-art in computational and data-driven methods and algorithms used to solve challenging problems in science and engineering. Students would be required to take 2 of the following 3 courses from the core course list on page 1:

  • ENME E4332 Finite Element Analysis I
  • CIEN E4111 Uncertainty and Risk in Infrastructure Systems
  • MECE E4520 Data Science for Mechanical Systems

 

Students fulfilling the Computational and Data-Driven Engineering Mechanics concentration must also complete 6 courses from the following list of selected electives:

  • CEOR E4011 Infrastructure Systems Optimization
  • CIEN E4011 Big Data Analytics in Transportation
  • CIEN E4021 Elastic and Plastic Analysis of Structures
  • CIEN E4100 Earthquake and Wind Engineering
  • CIEN E4213 Elastic and Inelastic Buckling of Structures
  • CIEN E4235 Multi-Hazard Design of Structures
  • CIEN E4241 Geotechnical Engineering Fundamentals
  • CIEN E4242 Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering
  • CIEN E4253 Finite Elements and Plasticity in Geotechnical Engineering
  • CIEN E6246 Advanced Soil Mechanics
  • CIEN E6248 Experimental Soil Mechanics
  • CIEE E4250 Hydrosystems Engineering
  • ENME E4113 Advanced Mechanics of Solids
  • ENME E4114 Mechanics of Fracture and Fatigue
  • ENME E4115 Micromechanics of Composite Materials
  • ENME E4202 Advanced Mechanics
  • ENME E4214 Theory of Plates and Shells
  • ENME E4215 Theory of Vibrations
  • ENME E4363 Multiscale Computational Science and Engineering
  • ENME E6215 Principles and Applications of Sensors for Structural Health Monitoring
  • ENME E6216 Structural Health Monitoring
  • ENME E6220 Stochastic Engineering Mechanics
  • ENME E6320 Computational Poromechanics
  • ENME E6333 Finite Element Analysis II
  • ENME E6364 Nonlinear Computational Mechanics
  • ENME E6370 Turbulence Modeling
  • ENME E8310 Advanced Continuum Mechanics
  • ENME E8320 Viscoelasticity and Plasticity
  • APMA E4001 Principles of Applied Mathematics
  • APMA E4300 Computational Math: Introduction to Numerical Methods
  • APMA E4301 Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations
  • APMA E4302 Methods in Computational Science
  • APMA E6302 Numerical Analysis of Partial Differential Equations
  • CSEE W4121 Computer Systems for Data Science
  • COMS W4130 Principles and Practice of Parallel Programming
  • COMS W4771 Machine Learning
  • COMS W4772 Advanced Machine Learning
  • COMS W4776 Machine Learning for Data Science
  • COMS W4995 Topics in Computer Science: Mathematics of Machine Learning and Signal Recognition
  • MECE E6102 Computational Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow
  • ECBM E4040 Neural Networks and Deep Learning
  • Independent research with faculty in CEEM (CIEN E9101) or in other SEAS departments

Concentration Notes:

  • CIEN E4100, CIEN E4131, and CIEN E4241 are on the core list and are also part of certain concentrations. Students taking these courses may decide to count the course towards their core requirements or the concentration requirements if there is an overlap.
  • Students may discuss substitutions for courses with their faculty adviser under certain circumstances, i.e. if a specified course in their concentration is not offered during a given semester, if the student took a comparable course in a previous degree program, etc.
    • The faculty adviser will be responsible for determining if the proposed course is a suitable substitution in their chosen concentration.
    • The Engineering School does not accept transfer credits towards graduate degree programs.