Atkinson Heads UB’s Great Lakes Program

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Joseph F. Atkinson, Ph.D., who has conducted more than a decade of Great Lakes-related research, has been named director of UB's Great Lakes Program.

The program is one of some 10 university-based Great Lakes research centers in the U.S. and Canada to develop, evaluate and synthesize scientific and technical knowledge on the Great Lakes ecosystem in support of public education and policy formation.

Atkinson, professor of civil, structural and environmental engineering in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, served as interim director of the program from 1998-99.

The head of UB's Environmental Fluid Mechanics Laboratory, 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.

Last year, he was awarded a J. William Fulbright Scholarship and lectured and taught at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. He also conducted research involving sediment transport and mixing in surface waters at the Coastal and Marine Engineering Research Institute.

A UB engineering faculty member since 1984, Atkinson has been a principal or co-principal investigator on funded research projects totaling more than $2 million.

He is a past recipient of 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, Claremont, Calif., a master's degree from Cornell University and a doctorate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Atkinson lives in Amherst.