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Archive: 2020
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  • April

    Discovering the Mural in Permafrost

    In the forests of Fox, Alaska, carved into a frozen hillside is a unique manmade 350-meter long research tunnel. Situated on a 16-acre parcel near the confluence of Goldstream and Glenn Creeks, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Research and Development Center’s Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory’s Permafrost Tunnel Research Facility was excavated deep into a large block of discontinuous permafrost that has been going through several recent periods of expansion. The expansion project began back in 2011, taking advantage of the digging seasons when the ground is at its coldest, with an overall project goal of expanding the tunnel facility to better support ongoing and growing research and engineering needs. The most recent expansion effort, this year, has added 300-feet of new tunnel, improved 200 feet of the existing tunnel and added links between the old and new tunnel sections at several locations, to include at an interface between subsurface bedrock and overlying gravels.
  • Team successfully tests new unmanned autonomous surface vessel

    Anxious at first about the specter of possible software glitches that would derail the project, the U.S. Army Engineer and Development Center’s Justin Wilkens, a research biologist with the Environmental Laboratory, soon confirmed that everything was functioning well. He and a team of other EL research biologists, including Dr. Guilherme Lotufo and Dr. Mark Ballentine, visited Vieques, an island off the coast of Puerto Rico, for five days in February to demonstrate a new unmanned autonomous surface vessel, or USV.
  • U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center prototypes makeshift hospital rooms

    The Commanding General of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite has made headlines for his plans to construct makeshift hospital rooms across the country as the Nation prepares for an onslaught of COVID-19 patients. Recently, Semonite called on the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Develeopment Center in Vicksburg to ask for help in accomplishing that mission.
  • March

    Career opportunities made Corps a compelling place for Nelson

    Looking back on her 35-year career, the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s Dr. Linda Nelson thinks the opportunities were so plentiful, she couldn’t resist staying with the Corps. The associate technical director for Civil Works, Environmental Engineering and Sciences, wore three hats until she retired, February 28, 2020, serving also as program manager for the Aquatic Nuisance Species Research and the Aquatic Plant Control Research Programs.
  • A Civil Works titan retires from 40-year research career with the Corps

    A noteworthy but humble figure exited the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s Environmental Laboratory for the last time, February 28, 2020. Dr. Alfred Cofrancesco, Jr. retired from his position as senior scientific technical manager and director of the Civil Works environmental research area for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
  • CRREL Site Visit

    Students from the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute program at Dartmouth College, located in Hanover, New Hampshire, visited the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Research and Development Center’s Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, also located in Hanover, February 24, 2020. The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute believes that regardless of age, learning never stops. This winter, they offered the course “Hot Topics at the Cold Regions Lab,” giving 46 students — made up of mostly retired professionals from a variety of backgrounds — the opportunity to hear from CRREL scientists and engineers about the type of work they do for laboratory and the ERDC.
  • U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center assists in mudslide assessment

    A team of researchers from the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center assisted the Vicksburg National Military Park in assessing landslides and erosion on the grounds.
  • Want a glimpse of the future? Look no further than ITL’s new DIVE laboratory.

    The newest facility at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) will make you feel like you’ve traveled forward in time. The Dynamic Immersive Virtual Environment (DIVE) laboratory allows researchers to test and develop solutions for the Department of Defense (DoD) using leading augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) gear. The rise of this technology has already changed the way we work and learn, and it will now be used to allow Army engineers, scientists, and stakeholders to immerse themselves in true scale, 3D environments.
  • Train-the-trainer course challenges U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center security guards

    Every day, thousands of U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center employees drive through the gates to work and are greeted by members of the ERDC security force. However, these men and women are not there just to check employee credentials or sign-in visitors — they have a much more critical role. Their job is to maintain the safety and security for everyone on each ERDC installation.
  • February

    Two ERDC researchers earn Black Engineer of the Year awards

    At the office, LaKenya Walker spends her time using high-performance computing to help the military better understand its weapon systems. Cameron Thomas works just a few buildings away as an expert in explosive weapons effects. Though their jobs are a bit different, the two U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center employees now have something very special in common—they are both winners of the 2020 Black Engineer of the Year Award (BEYA) for Modern Day Technology Leaders.
  • Multifunctional Assessment Reconnaissance Vessel allows for remote survey of marine structures

    A team of researchers from the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory, led by principal investigator Thad Pratt and including co-pi William Butler and research engineers Jonathan Marshall and David Nguyen, have developed and improved a prototype Multifunctional Assessment Reconnaissance Vessel that allows for remote survey of pile-supported marine structures. Operators can produce final data products within 12 hours of arriving on site, allowing structural engineers to deliver a repair plan within 24 hours. The U.S. Transportation Command and Office of the Secretary of Defense-funded project has resulted in the schedule of five units to be delivered to Army dive detachments as part of the Instrument Set, Reconnaissance and Surveying (ENFIRE) program.
  • The Corps’ Field Research Facility unsurpassed for coastal observation and research

    Duck, N.C., (February 18, 2020) -- Along the Outer Banks of North Carolina, in the small coastal town of Duck, the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s Field Research Facility has supported the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ coastal engineering mission for more than 40 years.
  • Uniquely qualified unmanned aircraft systems team completes data collection project

    VICKSBURG, Miss. (Feb. 14, 2020) -- As the installation asset mapping project nears completion, U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program Manager Jenny Laird said she feels proud of her team. “This has been a two-year project in the making, and it’s a huge accomplishment for our group, the Environmental Laboratory and the ERDC as a whole to have created a comprehensive map for a 700-acre installation,” Laird said. “That’s a large data collection to take on as our first go-around with this type of application.”
  • Landmark guidelines on natural and nature-based features is an international effort

    Nearly four years ago, a team led by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and that now includes 189 scientists, engineers and resource managers from 73 worldwide organizations gathered to begin work on a set of international guidelines for utilizing Natural and Nature-Based Features. Today, the project is nearing completion with the publication of “Guidelines on the Use of Natural and Nature-Based Features for Sustainable Coastal and Fluvial Systems” expected in 2020. The guidelines will provide practitioners with the best available information concerning the conceptualization, planning, design, engineering, construction and maintenance of NNBF to support resilience and flood risk reduction for coasts, bays and estuaries, as well as river and freshwater lake systems.
  • Morton elected AIAA Fellow

    Dr. Scott Morton, a senior computational physicist in ITL’s Computational Science and Engineering Division, has been elected as an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Fellow. AIAA, the world’s largest technical society dedicated to the global aerospace profession, inducts only one member as Fellow for every 125 Associate Fellows each year, a practice that allows the recognition to be bestowed on only the most influential members of the field.
  • January

    Baylot awarded Bronze Order of the de Fleury Medal

    Alex Baylot began his career at the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center more than 30 years ago, and last month, his decades of hard work and service to the Army were recognized with one of the highest honors bestowed to employees—the Bronze Order of the de Fleury Medal.
  • Corps researchers win Department of Defense award for environmental restoration

    CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Dr. Kathryn Guy and Dr. Martin Page, both materials engineers at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, were part of a team of researchers who recently received the Environmental Security Technology Certification Program Project of the Year award in Environmental Restoration.