CCEE’s Downey Brill Jr. Wins 2024 Seminal Paper Award

Former CCEE Head E. Downey Brill Jr. was selected for the 2024 Seminal Paper Award by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)’s Environmental & Water Resources Institute (EWRI) Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management. The paper, which Brill coauthored, is titled “Battle of the Network Models: Epilogue,” and examines different models that can be used to optimally size water distribution pipes. Brill was recognized at the 2024 World Environmental & Water Resources Congress in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in May.

Brill joined CCEE as department head in 1988, after serving as a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He worked as head until 2005. He also served as director of the Center for Transportation and the Environment from 2005-16 and interim director of the Institute for Transportation Research and Education from 2016-18 before retiring in 2019. Brill has been a member of NC State’s operations research faculty since 2002 and has more than four decades of experience in carrying out and leading interdisciplinary work. His core research expertise is in the development of optimization models and their application to civil and environmental engineering systems. He has applied his system analysis methods to several domains including air and water-quality management, solid waste, floodplain land use planning, and water distribution systems.