Professor Kent Harries of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering has lead research in non-conventional materials in civil infrastructure for 25 years. In the last dozen years, he has focussed on locally sourced non-conventional construction materials, especially bamboo https://www.engineering.pitt.edu/kentharries/.

Associate Professor Ian Nettleship of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science is the founder of the Ceramic Filter Project https://www.engineering.pitt.edu/cfp/. For more than 15 years the Ceramic Filter Project has conducted research and development work on low-cost ceramic water filters made from locally sourced materials including clay and sawdust.