VICKSBURG, Miss. (April 5, 2018) -- The old world charm and culture of the Italian city of Padua was just one of the many high points Mathew Farthing experienced while in Italy on sabbatical from the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center. Farthing, a research hydraulic engineer in ERDC’s Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory, spent the last year teaching a graduate level mathematical engineering course at the University of Padua, the second-oldest university in Italy and the world’s fifth-oldest surviving university.