University of Utah civil and environmental engineering associate professor Steven F. Bartlett will be awarded the Distinguished Faculty Service Award from the U’s Bennion Center for Community Engagement. He will be recognized during this year’s university commencement on May 5.
Bartlett, who is also the associate chair of the civil and environmental engineering department in the U’s Asia Campus (UAC) in Incheon, South Korea, is one of two recipients of the award this year. The other is Professor Leticia Alvarez Gutierrez of the College of Education.
Each year, the center honors faculty members who have “demonstrated a commitment to the campus-community connection through a life of active, unpaid community service and the integration of service with research and teaching.”
Bartlett was honored for his mentoring of students, including capstone projects that engage them in real-life engineering projects that benefit the community. One such project was conducting a study of Big and Little Cottonwood canyons that looked at the impact of rising congestion in those areas. That study was then used by local communities to help plan further development of parking, trails, and other improvements.
Bartlett received his bachelor’s degree in geology and a doctorate in civil engineering, both from Brigham Young University. He has worked as an engineer for Geokinetics in Situ Oil Development, the Utah Department of Transportation, Westinghouse Savannah River Company in South Carolina, and Woodward-Clyde Consultants in Salt Lake City.
He joined the University of Utah in 2000 as an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and was appointed associate professor in 2007. He became associate chair of the civil and environmental engineering department at the U’s Asia Campus in South Korea in 2018.
The U’s College of Engineering and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering launched their undergraduate curriculum at the UAC in 2019. The core curriculum at the Asia Campus, like the one in Salt Lake City, includes classes in engineering calculus, transportation, engineering economics, strength of materials, dynamics, general chemistry and more.
Bartlett is a member of numerous institutes and associations, including the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society for Engineering Education, the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation, the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, and the Geo-Engineering Earthquake Reconnaissance. He is also chair of the U’s Construction Engineering Committee.
His research is focused on improving the resiliency of communities and environment to natural disasters and developing green infrastructure and rapid construction solutions. His engineering projects and experience span the globe from China, India and Saudi Arabia to Italy, Norway, the Philippines and Switzerland.
The Bennion Center will make a gift of $1,000 in honor of each of the award recipients to a nonprofit or charitable organization of their choice. This gift is possible by an endowment from David M. Jabusch, professor emeritus, University of Utah Department of Communication, and Susan Jabusch.
-- Story Written by Vincent T Horiuchi, College of Engineering