Vikas Khanna named Interim Chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Vikas Khanna, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Unviersity of Pittsburgh, has accepted the role of Interim Department Chair. According to an announcement by Michele V. Manuel, U. S. Steel Dean of Engineering, Vikas will begin his tenure July 1, 2025 while a national search committee is assembled. Khanna succeeds Radisav Vidic, P.E., who announced he will return to the faculty on June 30 following a 23-year tenure as department chair.

Since joining Pitt in 2010, Khanna has served as the Associate Chair of Graduate Studies for CEE, led multiple faculty search committees, served on several Swanson School committees, and held leadership positions in subdivisions of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. Since 2017, he has been an Editor for Resources, Conservation and Recycling, a leading journal in the field of sustainable engineering.

His research expertise focuses on sustainability and modeling and assessing the impacts of emerging environmental and chemical technologies, and he is actively engaged with the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation and the Pittsburgh Water Collaboratory. He earned his PhD in chemical engineering from The Ohio State University, where he was also a National Academy of Sciences Graduate Fellow. Vikas has been featured in media outlets including NSF Research News, NPR, and Inside Climate News.