May 2014      UTAH SECTION ASCE’s 2014 student chapter of the year goes to Brigham Young University Photo ASCE Based on its achievements over the past year to become more active, service-oriented, and unified, Brigham Young University’s ASCE Student Chapter has received the 2014 Robert Ridgway Student Chapter Award as the Society’s most outstanding chapter. Beginning the academic year with five main goals for improvement, the students leveraged the benefits of ASCE to increase membership over the year. Learn more about the BYU chapter’s award-worthy achievements in ASCE News. SEATTLE SECTION ASCE members to lead probe of Washington state landslide The tragic landslide near Oso, WA, two months ago left 39 dead and seven still unaccounted for. A research team led by two ASCE members has been assembled to gain a better understanding of its causes. The team plans to take advantage of rare before-and-after readings using remote-sensing lidar technology. Learn about the investigation in ASCE’s online Civil Engineering magazine. Read story>>  ALASKA SECTION Cold regions engineer wins ASCE award for a career of advances Edward Yarmak, Jr., P.E., M.ASCE, is the recipient of the Harold R. Peyton Award for Cold Regions Engineering for his 41-year career contributions to cold regions engineering through publications, design and construction of earth structures in permafrost, passive and active subgrade cooling and unfired pressure vessels. President and chief engineer at Arctic Foundations, Inc., based in Anchorage, AK, Yarmak has been involved in engineering, research, and consulting for more than 41 years. He is the author of more than 17 conference proceedings papers and research reports on thermosyphons, frozen barriers, permafrost thermal stability, refrigerated foundations, subgrade cooling and energy recovery systems, and passive thermal stabilization. Discover more of Yarmak’s award-worthy achievements in ASCE News. SEATTLE SECTION Authors of paper on accelerating bridge construction in Washington state win award A team of five engineers that collaborated on “Accelerated Bridge Construction in Washington State:  From Research to Practice,” a paper published in PCI Journal, has won ASCE’s 2014 T.Y. Lin Award. Two of its authors, Stephen Seguirant, P.E., M.ASCE, and M. Lee Marsh, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE, are profiled in ASCE News. Read about the backgrounds of each that qualified them to assist in writing the paper in ASCE News.  ALASKA SECTION Professor of Arctic engineering wins ASCE’s Canadian-American amity award Hannele Zubeck, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE, professor and chair of the Arctic Engineering Program at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, has won ASCE’s 2014 CAN-AM Civil Engineering Amity Award for her exemplary work with Canadian engineers. Zubeck has worked almost exclusively on cold regions problems involving pavement structures, foundations, and structural materials. Her work with Canadian counterparts includes cowriting a book on cold regions pavement engineering, serving on Canadian and international conference organizing committees, and promoting Canadian attendance at U.S. conferences and teaching Arctic engineering to Canadians via the Internet. Learn more about Zubeck’s award-worthy achievements in ASCE News. ARIZONA SECTION Arizona State professor wins ASCE’s Huber Prize for research Enrique R. Vivoni, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE, associate professor of water resources and geological sciences at Arizona State University, is a 2014 winner of ASCE’s Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prizes for his contributions to the understanding of ecohydrologic processes in semi-arid areas. Vivoni’s research has made contributions to the understanding of the moderating role of vegetation and interactions among water, energy, and carbon cycling, and to the development of high-resolution hydrologic models, including the use of parallel computing systems. Learn more about Vivoni’s award-worthy achievements in ASCE News. OREGON SECTION Oil and gas geotechnical engineer elected ASCE Fellow Richard A. Sullivan, P.E., F.ASCE, of Florence, Oregon, active in geotechnical and geoenvironmental offshore oil and gas projects around the world during a lengthy career in Houston and in southern California, has been elected an ASCE Fellow. While in Houston, Sullivan worked on geotechnical investigations, design and construction control for industrial plants, commercial buildings, earth levees and docks, and offshore oil and gas piled platforms. In California, he worked on site environmental assessments, permitting, environmental rehabilitation, construction control, and postclosure monitoring, notably at a Superfund site in Burbank.  Learn more of what made Sullivan worthy of election as a Fellow in ASCE News. SEATTLE SECTION University of Washington research examines STEM teaching methods College undergraduate students in science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines perform better in tests and fail courses at significantly lower rates when at least a portion of the class is presented in an active-learning format rather than a traditional lecture. That’s the conclusion of a large meta-analysis developed by a research team led by Scott Freeman, Ph.D., a principal lecturer in the Department of Biology at the University of Washington. Delve into the findings in ASCE’s online Civil Engineering magazine. Read story>> Outreach event? Successful activity? Announce it here! If you’re a local ASCE leader and your Section, Branch, Younger Member Group, or Student Chapter has staged any special events, engaged in outreach from grade-school kids to lawmakers, or anything of the sort, let ASCEnews Weekly know and we may include it in next month’s Region report. You may already have written about it and posted pictures in your newsletter, website, or social media. Share the details and any photos at asce.org/localnews. Got questions? Write to submissions@asce.org. See the other Region reports for May If you live adjacent to a Section in a different Region, or are merely interested in the other Region reports for May, click on each to view them:   Region 1   Boston Society of Civil Engineers Section, Buffalo Section, Connecticut Society of Civil Engineers Section, Ithaca Section, Maine Section, Metropolitan Section, Mohawk-Hudson Section, New Hampshire Section, New Jersey Section, Puerto Rico Section, Rhode Island Section, Rochester Section, Syracuse Section, Vermont Section Region 2   Central Pennsylvania Section, Delaware Section, Lehigh Valley Section, Maryland Section, National Capital Section, Philadelphia Section, Pittsburgh Section Region 3   Akron-Canton Section, Central Illinois Section, Central Ohio Section, Cincinnati Section, Cleveland Section, Dayton Section, Duluth Section, Illinois Section, Michigan Section, Minnesota Section, North Dakota Section, Quad Cities Section, Toledo Section, Wisconsin Section Region 4   Arkansas Section, Indiana Section, Kentucky Section, North Carolina Section, South Carolina Section, Tennessee Section, Virginia Section, West Virginia Section Region 5   Alabama Section, Florida Section, Georgia Section, Louisiana Section, Mississippi Section   Region 6   New Mexico Section, Oklahoma Section, Texas Section Region 7   Colorado Section, Iowa Section, Kansas City Section, Kansas Section, Nebraska Section, South Dakota Section, St. Louis Section, Wyoming Section Region 8   Alaska Section, Arizona Section, Columbia Section, Hawaii Section, Inland Empire Section, Montana Section, Nevada Section, Oregon Section, Seattle Section, Southern Idaho Section, Tacoma-Olympia Section, Utah Section Region 9   Los Angeles Section, Sacramento Section, San Diego Section, San Francisco Section Region 10   All International Sections, Branches, and Groups Missed last month's Region 8 update? 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