Higher Education Capacity Building in Water Resources Engineering and Management to Support Achieving the Sustainable Development Goal for Water in Pakistan

Dr. Steven J. Burian has advanced water infrastructure resiliency and sustainability through research, led multi-disciplinary water initiatives, and inspired students with his passionate approach to engineering education. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Notre Dame and a Masters in Environmental Engineering and a Doctorate in Civil Engineering from The University of Alabama. Dr. Burian’s professional career spans more than 20 years during which he has worked as a design engineer, as a Visiting Professor at Los Alamos National Laboratory, as a Professor at the University of Arkansas and the University of Utah, and as the Chief Water Consultant of an international engineering and sustainability consulting firm he co-founded. He served as the first co-Director of Sustainability Curriculum Development at the University of Utah where he created pan-campus degree programs and stimulated infusion of sustainability principles and practices in teaching and learning activities across campus. Dr. Burian currently is the Project Director of the USAID-funded U.S.-Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Water at the University of Utah. He also serves as the Associate Director for the Global Change and Sustainability Center at the University of Utah where he facilitates interdisciplinary sustainability research initiatives. His research group has contributed new approaches for designing urban water infrastructure, innovative urban databases and water modeling techniques, sustainable solutions for distributed water-energy-food systems in cities, and practical adaptation strategies for water managers facing aging infrastructure, climate change, and other challenges. This research has been funded by NSF, EPA, NASA, DOD, DOE, USAID, National Labs, State Departments of Transportation, and Industry in the U.S. and several countries. More than 75 authored or co-authored peer-reviewed publications, 100 conference papers and project reports, and several software packages and databases have been produced from this research. Dr. Burian’s enthusiasm for student learning has led to numerous teaching awards and the creation of new pedagogical approaches directed toward multi-institution collaborative learning. He has also sought to advance teaching effectiveness of engineering educators by serving as mentor at the American Society of Civil Engineers ExCEEd Teaching Workshop and as the developer of a variety of teaching and curriculum development workshops, including the recent Wasatch Experience at the University of Utah.