College of Engineering news

An excavator plunges its bucket into a hole, scooping dirt and piling it nearby. A short while later, a bulldozer pushes the dirt away. Neither has a human in its driver’s seat. Instead, the operators…

A new summer research program will give University of Wisconsin-Madison civil engineering undergraduates hands-on exposure to the future of roadway construction. Zhenhua Zhu, an associate of civil and environmental engineering at UW-Madison, says the 10-week…

While fantasies of mechanical maids aren’t yet reality, autonomous aides are emerging in a few areas of the modern world. Highlight reels from the inaugural World Humanoid Robot Games, held in August 2025 in Beijing,…

The buzz of drones on construction sites is becoming ever more common, enabling crews to scan or inspect their work from above. At the same time, those drones can distract workers and cause accidents or…

The construction industry workforce is aging and facing major shortages to keep pace with demand across the United States. According to the Associated Builders and Contractors, almost a quarter of the construction workforce is older…

In 2016, the artificial intelligence program AlphaGo defeated 18-time world-champion Go player Lee Sedol, four matches to one, in a five-match series. Civil and environmental engineering graduate student Xin Wang is researching ways that construction…

Over the winter, passersby may have wondered why Dalila Ricci and Keerthana Sreenivasan were huddled in the field behind the structures lab in Engineering Hall pouring pickle and cheese brine on chunks of asphalt and…

For the UW-Madison College of Engineering, 2019 was a year full of extraordinary achievements. We continued to push the boundaries of scientific knowledge on many fronts, improve the quality of people’s lives through our engineering…