Office of the Provost and Senior Vice President

Faculty Spotlight

Dr. Jeffrey A. Cunningham

Name

Jeffrey A. Cunningham

College

Engineering

Department

Civil & Environmental Engineering

Undergraduate Degree

B.Sc., Chemical Engineering, 1991

From

Rice University

Graduate Degree

M.S., Civil Engineering, 1993

From

Stanford University

Doctoral Degree

Ph.D., Civil & Environmental Engineering

From

Stanford University

Previous Post(s)

• Assistant Professor, Texas A&M University, 2003–04
• Engineering Research Associate, Stanford Univ., 2001–03
• Post-doctoral researcher, Stanford Univ., 1999–2000

Selected Published Works

Author or co-author of 13 peer-reviewed research papers in scientific journals, along with numerous conference papers

Area of Specialization / Research

Contaminant behavior in the environment, including clean-up of contaminated soil and water.

Current Course Offerings

• ENV 6002, Physical & Chemical Principles of Environmental Engineering
• ENV 4001, Environmental Systems Engineering

How and when did you first become interested in your field of study?

As an undergraduate, I spent a couple of summers working in the oil industry, which was common for chemical engineers at that time. I spent one summer working in Alaska for an oil company; it was not long after the much-publicized Exxon Valdez spill. My summer experiences in the oil industry pretty much convinced me that I’d rather apply my education to cleaning up the environment, rather than polluting it further. Luckily, the chemical engineering background lends itself very well to environmental engineering problems, so it was an easy transition.

What made you decide to pursue a career in higher education? 

As a graduate student at Stanford, I was pretty much indoctrinated into the idea that a career as a professor is the most desirable career path. In my case, I was easily convinced of this, because as a graduate student I really enjoyed both teaching and conducting original research. Those are the two cornerstones of a professor’s job, so it was easy to decide that higher education was the right place for me to be.

Why did you choose to be a part of the academic community at USF?

My reasons for coming to USF were as much personal as professional. My wife also holds a PhD, and we were looking for a university where we could both pursue careers as tenure-track professors. That is a tough challenge for a dual-career couple, because faculty positions often target particular research expertise, and it is not often that a single university has two openings in just the right areas. After a couple false starts in other positions, we discovered that USF had faculty openings in both of our research areas. We both applied for the vacancies, we both were selected as the top candidates for the jobs, and here we are.

What do you enjoy about teaching the students of USF?

I love it when I work with a student and I see that metaphorical light bulb go on over his/her head. I know that the student has made an important connection, and that I am largely responsible for it. That is a rewarding feeling. Teaching at USF has an additional element in that our student body is very diverse, not just ethnically but also in terms of the paths that students pursued to get to where they are now -- maybe a student is the first in his/her family to attend college, or maybe a student has returned to school after a long time in some other endeavor, or maybe a student is supporting a family while attending school. I really enjoy working with such a diverse group of students.

What do you like about the university community?

In addition to how much I enjoy working with the students, I also love working at an institution that is dedicated to knowledge and learning, and I love that I get paid to be a professional thinker. A friend of mine once pointed out to me that it is a privilege to be one of the few people in society whose role and responsibility it is to generate new knowledge for the good of that society.