Skip to main
University-wide Navigation

About Civil Engineering

In the Department of Civil Engineering, we are developing tomorrow’s infrastructure. We support robust research programs in the areas of geotechnical, water resources, environmental, transportation, construction and structural engineering. The Kentucky Transportation Center – the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s research and training arm – and the Kentucky Water Resources Research Institute are both housed within the Pigman College of Engineering. Add it up, and we are training civil engineering students to meet the infrastructure challenges of today and tomorrow.

8 Faculty members

involved in Humanitarian Engineering

All People are affected by infrastructure

11% Annual job growth

Over the next 10 years

4 Faculty winners of UK Alumni Great Teacher Awards

of UK Alumni Great Teacher Awards

#2 Best engineering jobs (USNEWS)

$461K Department awarded scholarships

NOW OFFERING ONLINE COURSES

Are you a working professional wanting to continue your civil engineering education? The department of Civil Engineering is now offering online graduate courses !

Contact Mei Chen for more information.

Student on laptop

CLIMBS Kentucky Climate Resilience

Read about Climbs on Ky NSF Epscor.

Explore our Research Areas

Find your path in Civil Engineering! 

SEEK

Group of students standing on a bridge

The Summer Engineering Exploration Kamp (SEEK) will feature hands-on learning opportunities, guest speakers from engineering companies, and field trips to active project sites for rising high school seniors.

Learn more about the camp

Civil Department News

Byrne wins best reviewer award

Diana M. Byrne, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering, has been honored with the 2026 Best Reviewer Award for the Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management.  The Best Reviewer Award is selected by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Environmental & Water Resources Institute (EWRI) awards committee and Byrne will be honored at the 2026 World Environmental and Water Resources Congress in Mobile, Alabama in April. 

Pennell named editor-in-chief of Reviews on Environmental Health

Kelly G. Pennell, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Civil Engineering and director of engineering research endowments in the Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering, has been named editor-in-chief of Reviews on Environmental Health.

Pennell named director of engineering research endowments

Kelly G. Pennell, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Civil Engineering and director of the UK Superfund Research Center, has been named the inaugural director of engineering research endowments in the Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering.

Bryson wins Kentucky ASCE Distinguished Engineering Educator Award

L. Sebastian Bryson, Ph.D., Hardin-Drnevich-Huang Professor and chair of the Department of Civil Engineering in the University of Kentucky Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering, was the recipient of the 2025 Distinguished Engineering Educator Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Kentucky Section. The award was presented on Sept. 12 at the ASCE Kentucky Section Annual Meeting in Lexington.

Pigman College of Engineering welcomes 7 new faculty members

This month, the University of Kentucky Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering welcomed seven new members to its faculty.  Brooks Lane, assistant professor in the  F. Joseph Halcomb III, M.D. Department of Biomedical Engineering Lane earned his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 2019 and most recently served as a postdoctoral fellow at Drexel University.  His research interests are: 

UK Engineering receives record number of NSF CAREER awards

Six Pigman College of Engineering faculty members received National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) awards, the NSF’s prestigious award in support of early-career faculty, in the 2025 funding cycle.  This was the Pigman College of Engineering's  highest annual number of NSF CAREER awardees in the 30-year history of the program. In addition, the college boasted a 75% success rate for CAREER awards in the 2025 funding cycle.