2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Re-envisioning the Curricular Pathway in Environmental Engineering

Presented at Tech Session 5: Toward a New Paradigm in Environmental Engineering: From Knowledge Frameworks to Learning Impact

Currently, students majoring in civil engineering at XX do not get exposure to discipline-specific course content in environmental engineering until the final quarter of Year 3. We’ve noticed that many students we’ve advised come into their first year with an interest in environmental engineering, but they tend to choose different paths before they even have a course in environmental engineering. We developed a plan that re-envisions the pathway for the environmental engineering curriculum. We evaluated different scenarios of curriculum pathways to provide students with exposure to environmental engineering content earlier in their academic career. Through this process, we explored how to repackage the environmental engineering curriculum, and we assessed impacts on other courses in the civil engineering major program curriculum and the environmental engineering minor program curriculum to determine the feasibility of each option. While evaluating existing course content, we compared current coverage with the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists (AAEES) Environmental Engineering (EnvE) Body of Knowledge (BOK) and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) BOK. Through this process, we developed a curricular pathway to introduce students to discipline-specific environmental engineering content early in the academic career that encompasses both the EnvE BOK for the environmental engineering minor degree program and the ASCE BOK for the civil engineering major degree program, as well as meeting ABET accreditation outcomes that could be helpful for other programs that offer Environmental Engineering content within a Civil Engineering degree program as well.

Authors

Dr. Jennifer Mueller PE, ENV SP Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology [biography]

Dr. Jennifer Mueller is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. She graduated with her BS in Environmental Engineering from Northwestern University and with her MS and PhD in Civil Engineering with an emphasis on Environmental River Mechanics from Colorado State University. Her graduate work focused on exchange of surface water and groundwater, as well as nitrate uptake, in streams with varying degrees of rehabilitation. Dr. Mueller’s areas of interest include water quality, sustainable design, watershed hydrology, and river hydraulics. Current projects involve pedagogical studies for incorporating sustainability and ethical decision making in undergraduate engineering education, with an emphasis on touchpoints throughout the four-year curriculum.
Dr. Michelle Marincel Payne Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology [biography]

Dr. Michelle Marincel Payne is an Associate Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. She earned her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, her M.S. in Environmental Engineering from Missouri University of Science and Technology, and her B.S. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla (same school, different name). At Rose-Hulman, Michelle is co-leading a project to infuse an entrepreneurial-mindset in undergraduate students’ learning, and a project to improve teaming by teaching psychological safety in engineering education curricula. Michelle also mentors undergraduate researchers to investigate the removal of stormwater pollutants in engineered wetlands. Michelle was a 2018 ExCEEd Fellow, and was recognized as the 2019 ASCE Daniel V. Terrell Awardee.
Dr. Namita Shrestha Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology [biography]

Dr. Namita Shrestha earned her PhD in Civil/Environmental Engineering from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology; Master of Science in Civil/Environmental Engineering from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. Her research interests include bioelectrochemical systems, microbial electrochemistry, resource recovery from waste/wastewater, waste treatment and nanomaterial for bioelectrochemical application. She is passionate about research‐based learning and student-centered pedagogy. She serves as a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP), Environmental & Water Resources Institute (EWRI) and ASEE.

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