Mission

Daring to design an enduring society.

Vision

A world that embraces sustainability of infrastructure and the environment and a school where the brightest minds collaborate to ensure it.

What is ESSIE?

The Engineering School of Sustainable Infrastructure & Environment (ESSIE) continues to improve and advance sustainability through a nexus of the civil, coastal, environmental and oceanographic programs. ESSIE is comprised of the Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering (CCE) and the Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences (EES).

ESSIE offers broad-based, yet cutting-edge undergraduate and graduate programs. Undergraduates have a choice of two exceptional undergraduate degree programs, one leading to a B.S. in Civil Engineering and the other a B.S. in Environmental Engineering. Each program is accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET. Both programs provide options for a combined bachelor’s/master’s degree (i.e., “4-1 Program”) in which students may double-count graduate course credit to accelerate progress toward a master’s degree.

The school also provides multiple master’s and doctorate programs in three major disciplines: Civil Engineering, Coastal and Oceanographic Engineering, and Environmental Engineering Sciences. Instilling excellence in teaching, research, leadership, innovation, and entrepreneurship are ESSIE’s highest priorities. A growing number of our undergraduate and graduate students are participating in a college-wide initiative to foster concomitant training in entrepreneurship, innovation, and leadership skills in engineering.

ESSIE is uniquely comprehensive in its ability to address the new research on coastal, environmental, infrastructure and community needs. No other institution offers a suite of academic and research programs or synthesizes and combines all of the unique qualifications and the positioning. The special position to address Florida’s needs is extensible to other coastal states within the Southeastern Coastal Plain (including the Gulf Coast and Atlantic seaboard states) and other countries (such as Italy, the Netherlands or Australia) where the coastal interface supports civil infrastructure systems, a sustainable environment of air/water/terrestrial/ecological resources, and human communities.

Thrust Areas

ESSIE consists of six interconnected thrust areas:

  1. Coastal Ecosystem Dynamics
  2. Transportation Systems
  3. Sustainable Materials Management
  4. Hazards Engineering
  5. Health Engineering
  6. Engineering Education Collaborative

Areas of Concentration

In response to the civil, coastal and environmental needs, our areas of specialization thrusts fall into several broad research areas: