UC Civil and Environmental Engineering

UC Civil and Environmental Engineering Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Canterbury is rated in the top 1 per cent of civil

📢 We're very pleased welcome to Miss Jinyao Zhao who arrived last week from Guangzhou, South China University of Technol...
08/09/2026

📢 We're very pleased welcome to Miss Jinyao Zhao who arrived last week from Guangzhou, South China University of Technology (SCUT). Her previous academic background was in Mathematics and Probability and Statistics, and she will now be conducting research in transportation. She was awarded a CSC (China Scholarship Council) to conduct her research here.

Jinyao’s current research focuses on Urban Air Mobility (UAM), which explores the use of electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles (eVTOLs) for passenger transport within and around cities. She became interested in this area because of becoming curious about how emerging transport technologies can complement existing systems and improve the efficiency and accessibility of urban travel.

Here for one year, she will be working with Transportation group and supervised by Dr Yi Wang. During her visit, Jinyao will investigate infrastructure planning and operational strategies for UAM, with a particular focus on eVTOL range, vertiport configuration, and airport shuttle applications.

Apart from her studies, she enjoys Pilates and swimming. Since arriving in Christchurch, she is hoping to spend more time outdoors, try new activities, and explore the South Island.

👏👏👏 Last month, the Faculty of Engineering 3MT Final showcased the excellent research being undertaken by our postgrad...
04/09/2026

👏👏👏

Last month, the Faculty of Engineering 3MT Final showcased the excellent research being undertaken by our postgraduate students.

Congratulations to our Department PhD candidate Hashini Kuruppuarachchi, who took home Third Prize and the People’s Choice Award for her research, “From grey to green: Plant responses to greywater irrigation in green wall biofilters.”

Hashini's research under the supervision of Associate Professor Hamish Mackey and Professor Matthew Turnbull explores how New Zealand native plant species perform in green-wall biofilter systems designed to treat greywater generated by everyday household activities. She investigates how different plant species adapt and respond to different greywater sources, and how these responses can help us design more sustainable systems for water purification and reuse.

Early findings suggest that plant species differ in their ability to tolerate greywater sources, with some maintaining better growth and physiological performance under wastewater exposure.

A fantastic achievement and a great recognition of Hashini’s research. Congratulations also to all the finalists and participants for their outstanding presentations and contributions to research excellence!

It was a pleasure to welcome a delegation from South Korea to the University of Canterbury in Ōtautahi Christchurch on 7...
03/09/2026

It was a pleasure to welcome a delegation from South Korea to the University of Canterbury in Ōtautahi Christchurch on 7 August.

The delegation included Members of the Korean National Assembly, a representative from the Embassy of the Republic of Korea, and academic representatives from the Korean Society of Civil Engineers.

Their visit to Christchurch followed a visit to the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission and provided an opportunity to learn from our city’s experience of the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes, the recovery that followed, and the ongoing work to build a resilient and revitalised city.

At UC, Vice-Chancellor Professor Cheryl de la Rey and Executive Dean of Engineering Professor Saurabh Sinha, and Professor Rajesh Dhakal, Head of Civil and Environmental Engineering department welcomed the delegation before they met Professor of Earthquake Engineering, Brendon Bradley and Professor Tim Sullivan in the Structural Engineering laboratory.

For UC, this was a particularly meaningful conversation. Our earthquake experience has shaped our research and expertise in earthquake engineering, resilient infrastructure and disaster recovery, but it has also taught us that resilience is about much more than buildings and infrastructure. It is about people, communities, decision-making, collaboration, and sharing knowledge.
There are already strong connections between UC and South Korea, including our longstanding student exchange partnership with Yonsei University and extensive research collaborations with Korean institutions.

We hope this visit will be the beginning of many more opportunities to share knowledge, strengthen partnerships, and work together towards safer, more resilient communities. 🤝

Thank you to our South Korean guests for visiting UC and for the valuable conversations.

📢 We're very pleased to welcome Professor David Airey from the University of Sydney. David is hosted by Prof Misko Cubri...
01/09/2026

📢 We're very pleased to welcome Professor David Airey from the University of Sydney. David is hosted by Prof Misko Cubrinovski and Dr Mark Stringer in the Geotech Cluster.

Originally from the UK, He earned MA, MPhil and PhD degrees from the University of Cambridge. He moved to Australia in 1987 initially working on problems of soil characterization for offshore oil and gas platforms around Australia and related pile design.

Since 1989 he has been at the University of Sydney. His research has been in the broad area of experimental geomechanics, including laboratory element testing of soil and rock, environmental geotechnics, and model and field testing. He has published over 250 journal and refereed conference papers on these topics.
He is currently supervising projects into foundations for solar farms, improving energy efficiency in excavation, intelligent compaction, screw piles, offshore soil characterization for submarine landslides and developing a free fall penetrometer for remote site investigation.

During his short time at UC, until end of October, he plans to revisit the problem of cargo liquefaction, a problem in the seaborne transport of iron ore and nickel laterites. Interestingly just this week a large bulk carrier transporting iron ore capsized and sank in the Bay of Bengal with the loss of all but two of the crew.

🎓💚Yesterday, we had the privilege of celebrating our newest PhD graduates at our department’s Toki Ceremony.The Toki p...
28/08/2026

🎓💚

Yesterday, we had the privilege of celebrating our newest PhD graduates at our department’s Toki Ceremony.

The Toki pounamu is presented by supervisors to their graduating students as a symbol of the knowledge, perseverance and dedication that have gone into the PhD journey. It’s a particularly special moment for our graduates, and for the supervisors, colleagues, whānau and friends who have supported them along the way.

We were proud to celebrate Tudor Hnat and Mohammad Eskandarighadi, supervised by Assoc Prof Chris McGann; Moeen Gholami, supervised by Professor Aisling O’Sullivan; Mehdi Bashiri, supervised by Prof Greg MacRae (with thanks to Assoc Prof Anthony Abu for stepping in for Greg); Vivian Ye, supervised by Assoc Prof Anthony Abu; Jinjiang Liu, supervised by Prof David Dempsey and Dr Rebecca Peer; Baptiste Hamon, supervised by Assoc Prof Tom Cochrane; Ha Linh Nguyen and Yuanqi Zheng, supervised by Chin-Long Lee; and Hadi Vatankhah and Rafaella Canessa Figueroa, supervised by Assoc Prof Jannik Haas.

Behind every PhD is a story of persistence, late nights, and plenty of moments of doubt, but also growth and achievement. Yesterday was a chance to pause and recognise just how far they have come.

To all our graduates: congratulations! 🎓 Your hard work has brought you to this moment, and we’re incredibly proud to call you part of our CEE whānau. We can’t wait to see where your passion takes you next.

📢We are pleased to welcome Professor Tomer Toledo from the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Transp...
27/08/2026

📢We are pleased to welcome Professor Tomer Toledo from the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Transportation Research Institute at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.

Tomer earned a Ph.D. in Transportation Systems from MIT in 2003. He was previously a Visiting Professor at MIT and Northeastern University and an Adjunct Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology – Kanpur.

His research focuses on the areas of traffic modeling and simulation, driving and travel behavior and demand modeling, intelligent transportation systems, dynamic traffic management systems, and transportation network analysis. His current research centers around integration of machine learning methods and artificial intelligence tools to facilitate design and planning task. Specifically, such approaches are implemented to automate the process of demand model development and estimation to include domain-knowledge and requirements, and to design optimal traffic signal control plans that incorporate public transportation priority and pedestrian and bicycle actuation functions.

He has been teaching various classes on the related topics of traffic flow theory and traffic simulation, demand modeling and discrete choice analysis. He currently serves as an Editor for Transportation Research Record and International Journal of Modelling and Simulation. He was a past editor for Transportation Science and a member of the editorial board of Transportation Research part C: Emerging Technologies. He has authored over 100 journal papers and book chapters and more than 100 conference papers and presentations.

Within his half-year Sabbatical visit to UC, he aims to collaborate with researchers at the CTS lab who are at the forefront of traffic flow theory and traffic management research worldwide. He is also looking forward to exploring beautiful Aotearoa New Zealand during his time here.

👩‍🔬PhD candidate Viên Minh is from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, one of Southeast Asia's largest and fastest-growing metr...
26/08/2026

👩‍🔬

PhD candidate Viên Minh is from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, one of Southeast Asia's largest and fastest-growing metropolitan areas, where rapid urbanisation and industrial development continue to place increasing pressure on wastewater treatment systems. Growing up in this environment inspired her to pursue an Engineering degree in Water Supply and Sewerage Engineering before continuing her PhD in Environmental Engineering at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. With this vision in mind, she is pursuing research that she hopes will one day contribute to improving wastewater treatment in her home country.

Under the supervision of Associate Professor Ricardo Bello Mendoza and Associate Professor Hamish Mackey, Viên's research explores an innovative approach that combines two promising technologies. First, purple phototrophic bacteria are remarkably versatile microorganisms capable of adapting to diverse environments while recovering valuable resources from wastewater. Second, granular sludge is well known for its excellent settling ability and superior treatment efficiency compared with conventional activated sludge processes. By integrating these two approaches, her research aims to understand how hydrodynamic conditions influence the granulation process, ultimately contributing to the development of a more efficient biological wastewater treatment process.

One of the most rewarding aspects of Viên Minh's PhD journey has been discovering that setbacks sometimes lead to unexpected discoveries. Experiments that initially appeared to have "failed" sometimes revealed entirely new research directions. This experience has reinforced her belief that progress in research should not be judged solely by successful results, but also by curiosity, perseverance, and a willingness to learn from mistakes.

Viên is continuing her research and is currently writing her PhD thesis, which she hopes to submit next year.

"Research has taught me that mistakes are not always failures. Sometimes they are simply another path towards discovering something you never expected to find."

📢 Welcome to Xinwen Liang who joined us last week as a joint supervised PhD visiting scholar from College of Civil Engin...
24/08/2026

📢 Welcome to Xinwen Liang who joined us last week as a joint supervised PhD visiting scholar from College of Civil Engineering, Tongji University.

Xinwen's research is specialising in earthquake and structural engineering. She will be here with us for two years, working with Professor Rajesh Dhakal, Head of Department. Xinwen is funded same as many of our visiting Joint PhD students, by a China Scholarship Counsil (CSC) scholarship. Her overseas supervisor is Professor Ying Zhou.

Xinwen’s doctoral research examines the seismic behaviour of self-centring wall structures, particularly the response and interaction of non-structural components within these systems. More broadly, she is interested in floor response spectra, nonlinear structural modelling, seismic design, and the resilience of non-structural components. Her research aims to better understand how buildings and their components perform during earthquakes and how this knowledge can support safer, more resilient, and more functional buildings. During her time here she will continue to investigate the seismic response of structural and non-structural systems, with a particular focus on floor response, non-structural components, and building functionality.

In her spare time, Xinwen enjoys reading and writing, playing musical instruments, cooking, and exploring new places on foot. She is looking forward to discovering Christchurch and experiencing life in New Zealand during her stay.

👏👏👏Congratulations to Emma Gardiner for successfully defending her PhD thesis titled, "Influence of Pumice on the Res...
21/08/2026

👏👏👏

Congratulations to Emma Gardiner for successfully defending her PhD thesis titled, "Influence of Pumice on the Response of Liquefiable Deposits."

Emma’s research investigated how pumice-rich soils behave during earthquakes, using laboratory testing and dynamic centrifuge experiments to examine their liquefaction resistance and ground deformation. The research found that increasing pumice content can reduce a soil’s resistance to liquefaction, while pumice-rich soils respond differently to conventional sands, with earthquake-induced deformation distributed more evenly through the soil. These findings will help improve the assessment of liquefaction risk and support more resilient infrastructure design in pumice-rich areas of New Zealand.

Thank you to Emma’s supervisors, Dr Mark Stringer, Professor Misko Cubrinovski and Associate Professor Chris McGann, for their guidance and support throughout her PhD and exam chair: Associate Professor Eric Scheepbouwer.

Acknowledgements: Family, friends, Admin staff and Sean Rees, Geotechnical Research Engineer.

📢 A big welcome to our new Senior Specialist Systems Support, Kavitesh Kumar, who will be working alongside Paul Strange...
20/08/2026

📢 A big welcome to our new Senior Specialist Systems Support, Kavitesh Kumar, who will be working alongside Paul Strange in our department’s IT team.

Kavi has been seconded to us from UC Digital Services, where he has worked for eight years, based at the Matariki building and supporting staff and students with a wide range of IT services.

“One of the things I enjoy most about my role is being able to help people solve problems and make their day a little easier. I also enjoy learning about new technology and finding better ways of doing things.”

Outside work, Kavi is a car enthusiast, enjoys travelling and watching movies.

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