Background

The Program

Engineering geophysics is a new field which applies geophysics to engineering with reference to a broad spectrum of societal and industrial environmental problems. The program offers students of engineering and the geological and oceanographic sciences the opportunity to broaden and strengthen their backgrounds with emphasis on environmental applications by taking selected courses from graduate programs based in the School of Engineering and graduate programs in the geological and environmental sciences and oceanography (based in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences) in conjunction with existing M.S. and Ph.D. Programs.

The program encompasses multidisciplinary field, laboratory, and modeling studies using state-of-the-art geophysical, engineering, and oceanographic practice and theory. A comprehensive suite of research facilities is available for these studies, including geophysical, engineering, and marine field and laboratory instrumentation. For students of engineering, the program can provide training in geophysical methods and a geological and marine context for engineering applications. For students of geological and oceanographic sciences, the program can provide reciprocal training and training in engineering subjects that enhance their capabilities. The purpose of this cross-disciplinary training is to provide a competitive edge in research and in the job market.

Certificate Requirements

Students must fulfill all degree requirements in their major program of study. M.S. and Ph.D. students in the certificate program will take three courses in the participating graduate programs outside the graduate program of their degree, including at least one course in geophysics. The selection of courses within and outside of the graduate programs of participating departments will be determined by each graduate program and tailored to the individual needs and directions of the students.

Research Facilities

Equipment and Laboratories

• Geophysical instrumentation: shallow seismic system (marine and terrestrial), magnetometer, gravity meter, gamma-ray spectrometer
• Equipment for field seismic testing (crosshole, seismic cone, spectral analysis of surface waves) and laboratory evaluation of dynamic soil and rock properties (cyclic triaxial, resonant column, torsional shear, model testing in a soil bin)
• Laboratory for Visiometrics and Modeling, Center for Advanced Information Processing (CAIP), Rutgers–New Brunswick
• Rutgers University Marine Field Station, Tuckerton, New Jersey
• Long-Term Ecosystem Observatory at 15 meters depth (LEO-15)
• Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis, Cook College, Rutgers-New Brunswick

Libraries

Rutgers’ library system, with holdings of more than 3.7 million volumes, ranks among the top 30 research libraries in North America. As part of its Digital Library Initiative, Rutgers is actively expanding electronic access to journals, bibliographic databases, and quantitative data.

Graduate Courses

Courses in the program include, but are not limited to,
the following:

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering
Fundamentals of Contaminant Mass Transfer, Advanced Transport Phenomena 1 - Fluid Mechanics, Advanced Transport Phenomena 2 - Heat and Mass Transfer, Fluid-Particle and Granular Flow

Civil and Environmental Engineering
Soil Dynamics, Laboratory and Field Soil Dynamics, Environmental Geotechnology, Groundwater Engineering, Groundwater Engineering II, Coastal Engineering, Advanced Transport Phenomena I - Fluid Mechanics, Advanced Transport Phenomena II - Heat and Mass Transfer, Fluid Particle and Granular Flow, Groundwater Engineering II, Biogeochemcial Engineering, Sediment Transport, Environmental Management of Maritime Infrastructure

Ceramic and Materials Science and Engineering
Advanced Powder Processing, Physical Properties of Crystals, Crystal Chemistry of Ceramic Materials, Kinetics of Materials Systems

Electrical and Computer Engineering
System Analysis, Digital Signals and Filters, Optimum Signal Processing, Image Coding and Processing, Computational Methods for Signal Recovery, Multi-dimensional Signal Processing Algorithms, Computer Graphics, Machine Vision, Visualization and Advanced Computer Graphics, Robust Computer Vision

David Daut (Ph.D., Rensselaer)
Communications and information processing, digital communication system design and analysis, image coding and transmission
Daniel Gimenez (Ph.D. Minnesota)
Soil structure; water movement and solute transport through soils; soil quality
Scott Glenn (Ph.D., MIT and Woods Hole)
Physical oceanography, satellite remote sensing
Nenad Gucunski (Ph.D., Michigan)
Soil-structure interaction, nondestructive testing, numerical methods, soil and structural dynamics
Dale Haidvogel (Ph.D., MIT and Woods Hole)
Physical oceanography, numerical ocean circulation modeling
Richard G. Lathrop (Ph.D., Wisconsin-Madison)
Remote sensing, landscape ecology
Ali Maher (Ph.D., Michigan)
Soil/site improvement, soil composite materials, geosynthetics, soil dynamics, environmental geotechnology
Adrian Mann (Ph.D., Oxford)
Characterization and fabrication of materials using scanning and nanoprobes with particular emphasis on studying the nanomechanics of materials and biological systems.
Monica Mazurek (Ph.D., UCLA)
Air quality engineering, organic geochemistry, molecular markers as tracers for biogeochemical processes and environmental remediation.
James Miller (Ph.D., Maryland)
Air-sea interactions, remote sensing, climate modeling, earth system science
Andrew Norris (Ph.D., Northwestern)
Dynamics of solids, wave propagation, mechanics of composite materials
Henrik Pedersen (Ph.D., Yale)
Biochemical engineering, reactor design, plant cell culture
Richard Riman (Ph.D., MIT)
hydrothermal synthesis; mixedness-modulated solid-state synthesis; reactive atmosphere sol-gel synthesis
Alan Robock (Ph.D. MIT)
Climate change, climate modeling, soil moisture
Peter Rona (Ph.D., Yale)
Oceanic ridge crest processes, seafloor hydrothermal processes, marine geology and geophysics
Gregory S. Mountain (Ph.D., Columbia)
Seismic reflection and refraction, seismic stratigraphy, general geophysics, geology of the Atlantic continental margin
Deborah Silver (Ph.D., Princeton)
Visualization, computer graphics, computational geometry, numerical analysis
David Tulloch (Ph.D., Wisconsin-Madison)
GIS applications, public participatory GIS, environmental planning and design
Norman Zabusky (Ph.D., California Institute of Technology)
Computational and analytical fluid dynamics, nonlinear dynamical systems

Financial Aid

Rutgers offers assistantships, fellowships, and scholarships to qualified graduate students with strong academic achievement and financial need. Graduate stipends are competitive, and most awards carry remission of tuition. Many other forms of financial aid are available. Applications for financial awards must be received by March 1 to be considered for the fall term.

Admission

Applicants interested in pursuing graduate work in engineering geophysics at either the master’s or doctoral level must apply to one of the participating graduate academic degree programs. A curriculum plan will be developed with an appropriate faculty adviser in that program. For application forms and additional information about admission to the participating degree programs (including deadlines, GRE scores, and other requirements, which vary by program), contact:

Office of Graduate and Professional Admissions,

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey,

18 Bishop Place, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8530 (732/932-7711)
http://gradstudy.rutgers.edu
e-mail: gradadm@rci.rutgers.edu

For More Information

Professor Peter A. Rona
Director, Graduate Certificate Program in Engineering Geophysics
Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
71 Dudley Road
New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901-8521
732/932-6555, ext. 241
email: rona@imcs.rutgers.edu

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

As a university strongly committed to graduate education and research, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, provides graduate programs of exceptional academic quality taught by distinguished faculty. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers is now one of the nation’s premier research institutions and a member of the select Association of American Universities. The Graduate School–New Brunswick offers master’s and doctoral degrees in more than 50 disciplines. The large graduate student community (more than 3,700 in the Graduate School–New Brunswick, of whom
more than half are in residence at any given time) is engaged in the larger national research community through active lecture and seminar series, attendance at conferences, editorships of student-run journals, and cooperative endeavors with nearby institutions, especially
Princeton University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
Rutgers’ proximity to both New York City and Philadelphia is a notable asset for the cultural and academic opportunities that these cities afford.

Links to Participating Programs

• Ceramic and Materials Science and Engineering
• Chemical and Biochemical Engineering
• Civil Engineering
• Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Environmental Sciences
• Geological Sciences
• Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Oceanography

Other Links

• Graduate Admissions
• Graduate School-New Brunswick
• Rutgers University Libraries