Vikas Khanna Named Chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering

To our Swanson School community, Board of Visitors, and CEE Visiting Committee,

I am pleased to announce that Dr. Vikas Khanna has been appointed chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, effective September 1, 2026.

Since becoming interim chair on July 1, 2025, Vikas has met extensively with faculty, staff, and students and engaged external partners to understand CEE’s strengths, needs, and opportunities. Those conversations have informed his work to strengthen departmental operations and academic and faculty planning and to establish the CEE Honors and Awards Committee.

Vikas joined Pitt in 2010 and was promoted to professor in 2023. From 2017 to 2022, he served as CEE’s associate chair for graduate studies, leading graduate recruitment, admissions, orientation, academic requirements, and program development. He has also chaired faculty searches and served on School and University committees.

Vikas is a scholar in sustainability science and engineering whose research uses systems analysis, life-cycle assessment, optimization, and data-driven modeling to examine the environmental effects of emerging technologies and complex systems. His work spans water and resource recovery, food-energy-water systems, the circular economy, resilient infrastructure, ecosystem services, and emerging energy and water technologies.

He has published more than 75 peer-reviewed publications and served as principal investigator or co-principal investigator on nearly $10 million in externally supported collaborative research. Since 2017, he has served as an editor of Resources, Conservation and Recycling. He has held leadership roles within the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ Sustainable Engineering Forum and participated in the National Academy of Engineering’s Frontiers of Engineering Education Symposium. His research has received national and regional media attention and has been cited in government reports and policy documents in the United States and internationally.

As chair, Vikas plans to build on the interdisciplinary nature of civil and environmental engineering, pairing disciplinary strength with a forward-looking approach to education, research, and societal impact. His priorities include modernizing the curricula through greater integration of artificial intelligence, developing graduate pathways with public health and computing, expanding IRISE and its partnerships in resilient and intelligent infrastructure, and strengthening research at the intersection of water, the environment, and public health.

He intends to pursue that agenda through a transparent, collaborative culture that supports faculty, staff, and students. His goal is to strengthen CEE’s ability to improve human life through the infrastructure, water, and environmental systems on which communities depend, continuing a tradition of applying engineering to human needs that dates to the department’s founding in 1867.

I am grateful to search committee chair Sanjeev Shroff; members Sarah Haig, Steve Sachs, Cheryl Morand, Amir Alavi, Lev Khazanovich, and Melissa Bilec; CEE Visiting Committee member Jeff Mascaro; staff representative Alysia Flemming; and student representative Kate Volna for the considerable time and care they devoted to the national search.

Please join me in congratulating Vikas on his appointment and supporting him as he continues leading the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Sincerely,
Michele V. Manuel
U. S. Steel Dean of Engineering