Marcelo García, the Chester & Helen Siess Endowed Professor in Civil & Environmental Engineering, has been elected a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Distinguished Members have "attained acknowledged eminence in some branch of engineering or in the arts and sciences related thereto," according to ASCE.
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Marcelo García, the Chester & Helen Siess Endowed Professor in Civil & Environmental Engineering, has been elected a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Distinguished Members have "attained acknowledged eminence in some branch of engineering or in the arts and sciences related thereto," according to ASCE.
Marcelo García
García joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in January 1990, and currently serves as the director of the Ven Te Chow Hydrosystems Laboratory. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the Environmental Hydrology and Hydraulic Engineering area.
García is a leader in the field of river mechanics, sediment transport, sedimentation engineering and environmental hydraulics. He is best known for his research in sediment entrainment from riverbeds, flow and transport in vegetated channels, the mechanics of oceanic turbidity currents, and the dynamics of mudflows in mountain areas.
Related to water problems in the State of Illinois, García has developed physical models of the Boneyard Creek on the U of I campus to help solve flooding problems. He has redesigned low-head dams on the Chicago, Fox, and Vermillion rivers to reduce the number of drowning accidents, and he has designed canoe chutes for the same dams in order to increase the safe recreational use of Illinois streams.
Since 2003, García has led a major effort to develop hydrologic and hydraulic models of the Tunnel and Reservoir Plan being built the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. Together with his students he developed the first 3D hydrodynamic and water quality model of the Chicago River and associated waterways and unveiled the presence of density currents in the Chicago River during the winter months. ___________________________
Contact: Marcelo García, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 217/244-4484.
Writer:Celeste Arbogast Bragorgos, director of communications, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 217/333-6955.
If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Rick Kubetz, editor, Engineering Communications Office, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 217/244-7716.