University of Florida

University of Florida – Environmental Engineering

( by Gemma Henderson and Keryn Hawker )

On December 3, we visited the University of Florida (UF) in the small student town of Gainesville with tour organiser Kamy Cheng. UF is the third most comprehensive university in the US, with 45 000 students across over 120 disciplines, including 6000 graduate students. The College of Engineering consists of 11 departments, of which many are ranked in the top 20 in the nation.

Dr Peter Sheng, from Coastal and Oceanographic Engineering and who has spent some time at UWA, generously gave his time to plan and host the visit. The day began with an introduction to the faculty of Gator Engineering, in particular the Civil and Coastal Department and the various courses it offers. This department includes Coastal and Oceanographic Engineering which is comparable to the Environmental Engineering offered at UWA. A separate department at UF, Environmental Engineering Sciences, is more water quality based and very different to the degree of the same name taken at UWA. This initially caused confusion and highlighted the need for clarification of course content studied when comparing between universities.

Following the morning’s introduction, we were treated to a typical student lunch at Gator Dining where we met with some graduate students in the department. These students then took us on a grand tour of UF. This massive campus includes a football stadium, Gator Stadium, home to the football team Gators and birthplace of Gatorade Sport beverage. UF hosts a massive student sport culture with competitive teams in basketball, volleyball, football and track and field to name a few. The campus dominates the town of Gainesville, which appears to exist purely for the students. UF is surrounded by a wetland system complete with resident alligators that we found sunning themselves not far off the path. Signs surrounding the wetland warn owners to keep their dogs on the leash at all times!

The main laboratory for fluid dynamics housed large scale wave generators and a wide variety of field equipment for insitu oceanographic measurements. The department also has a strong interest in numerical modelling with the aid of high performance computing. Particular areas of interest within the department include:

	Hydrodynamic processes – circulation, waves and mixing in estuaries, shelves and lakes.
	Sediment transport processes – resuspension, deposition, flocculation, settling, advection and mixing.
	Water quality processes – nutrient dynamics, dissolved oxygen dynamics and plankton dynamics.
	Ecological processes – light attenuation and seagrass dynamics.

We were impressed by the comprehensive tour and hospitality of both staff and students. There was strong enthusiasm within the department for students from UWA to attend UF for graduate studies. We came away with a very positive opinion of UF and the exciting possibilities for further study. We are grateful for the unique opportunity provided by the Gledden Tour to visit universities abroad such as UF.