Professor Emeritus
Hoehn Room 210C
(205) 934-8434
Research and Teaching Interests: Environmental sustainability
Office Hours: T/TH 4:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Education:
- BSChE, Northwestern University, Chemical Engineering
- M.S., Iowa State University, Chemical Engineering
- Ph.D., Iowa State University, Chemical Engineering
Dr. Robert W. Peters joined the environmental engineering faculty as an Associate Professor of Environmental Engineering in fall 2001. He was promoted to full Professor in fall 2004. He is a registered Professional Engineer (PE) in Illinois and Indiana, and is currently pursuing his PE registration in Alabama. He is a past-chair of AIChE’s Environmental Division, has twice served as its director, and currently is division secretary. He has more than 80 refereed publications and more than 220 total publications in the environmental remediation field. He has presented workshops and webinars on “Sustainability Design and Rating Systems,” “Training Modules on Green/Sustainability Design and Rating Systems,” and “Training Modules on Green/Sustainability Design and Rating Systems” related to his research on environmental sustainability. He has mentored more than 40 graduate students in his academic career.
He was an invited keynote speaker addressing use of GIS and drone technology to monitor/assess system health performance, at the 9th Alexandria International Conference on Structural and Geotechnical Engineering, Alexandria, Egypt, in 2016. He currently is serving as Guest Editor for Special Issue on Hazardous Waste Treatment in the journal Applied Sciences.
His research activities focus on environmental sustainability (more information available below). He also has research projects addressing energy conservation and treatment of diesel emissions from mobile sources.
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Research Interests
- Building sustainability/energy conservation;
- green/vegetated roofs addressing storm water mitigation, storm water runoff water quality, energy reduction, and heat transfer;
- tower garden water quantification/engineering sustainability;
- food deserts;
- condensate recovery from air handling units;
- renewable energy resources;
- building lighting surveys/building occupancy surveys to identify energy conservation opportunities;
- pollution prevention assessments;
- modeling of pollution loading into rivers and receiving bodies of water;
- storm drain hazard assessment/chemical sensor analysis and quantification;
- livable cities/rating systems;
- advanced oxidation processing/treatment of organic contaminants/endocrine disrupting compounds; and
- evaluation of alternative disinfection systems for water/wastewater treatment.
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Teaching Interests
- CE 236: Introduction to Environmental Engineering
- CE 344: Engineering Analysis I
- CE 337: Hydraulics
- CE 431/531: Energy Resources
- CE 432/532: Industrial Waste Generation and Treatment
- CE 437/537: Environmental Experimental Design and Field Sampling
- CE 480/580: Introduction to Water and Wastewater Treatment
- CE 499: Engineering Hydrology (CE 485/585); Civil Engineering Senior Design
- CE 600: Sustainable Engineering Design
- CE 686/786: Engineering Hydrogeology and Remediation
- CE 638/738: Chemical Processes and Pollutant Impacts in Water
- CE 632/732: Advanced Wastewater Treatment
- CE 682/782: Water Treatment Engineering
- CE 690: Special Topics - Advanced Oxidation Processes
- Special Topics - Energy Resources II – Building Energy Conservation
- CE 441/641/741: Environmental Disasters – Lessons Learned, and Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar