Departmental Unit № 1
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)
PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering
100% Full Funding Guaranteed (5 Years)
Funding Package: Full tuition fellowship + 12-month stipend (~$38,000–$41,000/yr) + comprehensive health/dental insurance (GradCare) guaranteed via GSRA/GSI appointments.
Fall Priority Deadline: December 15
GRE Policy: Not required / Waived
English Minimums: TOEFL iBT 84 minimum or IELTS 6.5 minimum
MSE in Environmental Engineering (Thesis Option)
GSRA Eligible on Research Track
Funding Reality: Research-thesis MSE students can be funded as Graduate Student Research Assistants (GSRA) with full tuition waiver and salary.
Application Deadline: January 15
Admissions Advisory: If full funding is required and MS is self-funded, students are strongly advised to apply directly to the PhD track.
Vetted Matched Scholars (2 Profiles)
Prof. Valeriy Y. Ivanov
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
In Plain Terms · What This Scholar Does:
He builds supercomputer flood models and AI tools that show how heavy rains in distant rural hills flow together to suddenly drown coastal cities in devastating urban floods.
Core Research Topics: Ecohydrology, real-time flood forecasting, flow connectivity, machine learning in hydrology, coastal urban flooding, permafrost thaw dynamics.
Recent 2024–2026 Works & Grants: Recent 2026 papers: 'The Value of Forecasters-in-the-Loop in Real-Time Flood Forecasting in the Age of Machine Learning' (GRL, 2026), 'Significant Rural Contributions to Severe Coastal Urban Flooding Through Flow Connectivity' (GRL, 2026), and 'Integrating Maximum Entropy Production Theory and Machine Learning to Improve Global Evapotranspiration Modeling' (Water Resources Research, 2026).
Laboratory Instruments & Methods: tRIBS distributed hydrological model, hydrodynamic simulations, physics-machine learning hybrid algorithms, GIS spatial terrain processing, high-performance computing.
Recruiting Context: Leads major federal projects in flood resilience and watershed modeling. High priority for students with hydrology and GIS backgrounds.
Candidate Match:
HydrologyFlood ModelingGeoAIGISPython
Tailored Cold-Email Opening Hook:
"Citing his 2026 Geophysical Research Letters paper on rural flow connectivity driving severe coastal urban flooding, presenting your GIS and flood modeling preparation."
Prof. Terese M. Olson
Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
In Plain Terms · What This Scholar Does:
She tests municipal water supplies in the laboratory to discover how chemicals added to disinfect drinking water can accidentally create harmful chemical byproducts.
Core Research Topics: Environmental aquatic chemistry, chemical contaminant fate in drinking water, disinfection byproduct formation, laboratory water quality analysis.
Recent 2024–2026 Works & Grants: Investigates chemical reaction mechanisms of pollutants during water treatment and distribution, measuring toxic contaminant formation and heavy metal mobility in municipal water pipes.
Laboratory Instruments & Methods: High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), atomic absorption spectrometry, chemical titration, wet-lab water reaction kinetics.
Recruiting Context: Active wet-lab research in water quality chemistry. Directly seeks students with laboratory analytical training.
Candidate Match:
Environmental PollutionLab Water TestingWater QualityEnvironmental Chemistry
Tailored Cold-Email Opening Hook:
"Connecting your BSc wet-lab experience in water quality testing and chemical titration directly with her aquatic contaminant research."
Departmental Unit № 2
School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS)
PhD in Resource Policy and Behavior / Environment and Sustainability
100% Full Funding Guaranteed (5 Years)
Funding Package: Full tuition + 12-month stipend (~$38,000/yr) + health insurance guaranteed for 5 years.
Fall Priority Deadline: December 1
GRE Policy: Not required
English Minimums: TOEFL iBT 84 or IELTS 6.5
MS in Environment and Sustainability (Geospatial Data Science / Water Resources)
Competitive Merit Funding & GSI/GSRA Positions
Funding Reality: SEAS offers substantial merit fellowships, and MS students frequently secure funded GSI/GSRA positions in their second semester.
Application Deadline: January 15
Admissions Advisory: If full funding is required and MS is self-funded, students are strongly advised to apply directly to the PhD track.
Vetted Matched Scholars (1 Profiles)
Prof. Derek Van Berkel
Associate Professor of Environment and Sustainability
In Plain Terms · What This Scholar Does:
He uses satellite imagery, map algorithms, and spatial data science to understand how cities and farming landscapes change over time, helping planners protect natural spaces.
Core Research Topics: Geospatial data science, GIS, GeoAI, spatial analysis of land-use change, spatial human-environment geography, Earth observation data.
Recent 2024–2026 Works & Grants: Leads Geospatial Data Science initiatives at UMich SEAS. Fuses satellite remote sensing, social media spatial data, and machine learning algorithms to model land abandonment, urbanization, and ecosystem service trade-offs.
Laboratory Instruments & Methods: GIS spatial statistics (ArcGIS Pro, QGIS), Google Earth Engine, spatial machine learning, Python (GeoPandas, scikit-learn), R spatial packages.
Recruiting Context: Direct head of the Geospatial Data Science track at SEAS. Perfect match for a Geography and Environmental Science BSc holder with GIS skills.
Candidate Match:
GISRemote SensingGeoAIGeographyPython
Tailored Cold-Email Opening Hook:
"Discussing your background in GIS, remote sensing, and environmental geography applied to geospatial data science and spatial pattern analysis."