The Daniel L. and Irma Evans Endowed Lectureship provides an opportunity to deepen the understanding of engineering by exposing students and practicing engineers to the concepts, challenges, concerns and methods they will interact with throughout their careers.
Dan, Roger and Robert Evans established the endowed lecture in 1983 to memorialize and honor the human and broad societal outlook of their parents.
2026 lecture
Thursday, April 23 | 3:30 p.m. | Alder Hall Auditorium
Reception with light food and drinks to follow in Alder Hall Commons.
The lecture will be in-person, and a recording will be available online following the event.
This lecture is open to the public. Prior registration is encouraged but not required.
Shovel-Ready? Preparing Civil Engineers for Real-World AI Deployment
Featuring Dr. Deb Niemeier
Clark Distinguished Chair in Energy and Sustainability and Professor, University of Maryland
Abstract
Artificial intelligence is beginning to change how engineers inspect infrastructure, evaluate risks and make design decisions. In civil and environmental engineering, AI tools are being explored for tasks such as spotting damage in roads and bridges, predicting how materials will perform and improving models used to understand environmental systems.
While these tools have shown strong results in research settings, they are not yet widely used in everyday engineering practice. Real-world conditions are messier than controlled experiments, and many AI systems still raise important questions about reliability, transparency and trust.
In this lecture, Deb Niemeier will explore both the promise and the limits of AI in civil and environmental engineering. She will discuss what it will take to move these tools from research labs into real-world practice and how universities can help prepare the next generation of engineers to use AI responsibly and effectively.
About the speaker
Deb Niemeier is the Clark Distinguished Chair in Energy and Sustainability at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she is a professor of civil and environmental engineering and an affiliate professor in the College of Information Studies and the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science. Her research examines how the built environment shapes environmental health risks, with a focus on how housing, infrastructure and social conditions intersect with hazards such as air pollution, disasters and climate change.
Niemeier is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Guggenheim Fellow. She was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2020 and received the 2023 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science, along with numerous other honors for her contributions to engineering, environmental science and public policy.
View past lecturers