Departmental Unit № 1
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering & School of the Environment
PhD in Civil Engineering (Water Resources / Environmental) / PhD in Environmental and Natural Resource Sciences
100% Full Funding Guaranteed (Teaching/Research Assistantship)
Funding Package: Full tuition waiver + 9-12 month living stipend (~$26,000–$30,000/yr) + comprehensive health insurance package guaranteed via GRA/GTA appointments.
Fall Priority Deadline: January 10 (Fall Priority)
GRE Policy: Not required / Waived
English Minimums: TOEFL iBT 80 or IELTS 7.0
MS in Environmental Engineering (Thesis Option)
100% Full Funding Available for Thesis MS (Tuition Waiver + Stipend)
Funding Reality: WSU Civil & Environmental Engineering regularly awards research and teaching assistantships covering tuition and stipends to admitted MS thesis students.
Application Deadline: January 10
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. Jennifer C. Adam
Berry Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
In Plain Terms · What This Scholar Does:
Distinguished Professor who uses supercomputers to run the famous VIC water model across whole river basins, calculating how faster snowmelt from warming mountains threatens farm irrigation and city water supplies.
Core Research Topics: Hydroclimatology, land-surface hydrological modeling, climate change impacts on water supply, agricultural water demand, snow hydrology.
Recent 2024–2026 Works & Grants: Leading the macro-scale VIC (Variable Infiltration Capacity) and CropSyst coupled modeling of the Columbia River Basin, projecting how vanishing mountain snowpack alters irrigation water security and reservoir storage (USDA NIFA / NSF 2024–2026).
Laboratory Instruments & Methods: VIC hydrological model, CropSyst, high-performance computing, Python, R, NetCDF spatial data arrays, GIS.
Recruiting Context: Distinguished Professor and major authority on regional macro-scale hydrologic modeling.
Candidate Match:
HydrologyHydroclimatologyEnvironmental ModelingGIS
Tailored Cold-Email Opening Hook:
"Discussing your interest in macro-scale hydrologic modeling (VIC), snowpack hydrology, and climate-water resource interactions in the Adam Group."
Prof. Indranil Chowdhury
Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
In Plain Terms · What This Scholar Does:
He tests how tiny nanoparticles and 'forever chemicals' stick to underground sand grains versus how fast they wash through aquifer pores into drinking wells, using laboratory sand columns and laser sensors.
Core Research Topics: Environmental colloid and interface chemistry, nanoparticle and PFAS transport in groundwater, membrane water filtration, contaminant fate.
Recent 2024–2026 Works & Grants: Investigating how water chemistry, ionic strength, and dissolved natural organic matter govern the subsurface transport, retention, and aquifer mobility of emerging engineered nanomaterials and PFAS compounds (NSF Environmental Engineering 2024–2026).
Laboratory Instruments & Methods: Saturated sand column transport flumes, dynamic light scattering (DLS), zeta potential analyzers, quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D), UV-Vis spectrophotometry.
Recruiting Context: Strong experimental wet-lab specializing in colloid physics and porous media contaminant mobility.
Candidate Match:
Environmental PollutionWater QualityWet Lab Environmental TestingHydrology
Tailored Cold-Email Opening Hook:
"Discussing your interest in porous media contaminant transport, PFAS subsurface mobility, and colloid chemistry in the Chowdhury Laboratory."