Atkinson Receives Fulbright to Study in Israel

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Joseph F. Atkinson, Ph.D., professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, has received a J. William Fulbright Scholarship to lecture and conduct research in Israel.

Head of the environmental fluid mechanics laboratory at UB, Atkinson also is interim director and an affiliate of the Great Lakes Program. In addition, he serves on the steering committees of the university's Environment and Society Institute and the National Science Foundation-funded graduate program for Integrated Graduate Education and Research Training in geographic information sciences.

During his year of study in Israel, which will begin in August, Atkinson will collaborate with Hillel Rubin, a professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, on a textbook for a graduate class on environmental fluid mechanics.

Atkinson, who also plans to teach, will be involved in additional research and study on sediment transport and mixing in surface waters at the Coastal and Marine Engineering Research Institute.

Since joining the UB engineering faculty in 1984, Atkinson has been principal or co-principal investigator on funded research projects totaling more than $1.5 million.

He has received the State University of New York (SUNY) Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching and a teaching excellence award from Chi Epsilon civil engineering honorary society.

He earned a bachelor's degree from Harvey Mudd College, a master's degree from Cornell University and a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He lives in Amherst.