Carnegie Mellon University

CEE is a remarkable department, where faculty, students, alumni, and staff feel connected to each other and to the work being done here. Visitors notice the visible signs of our strong community, and new students quickly realize that they are part of someplace special. Our flexible undergraduate and graduate curricula and access to cutting-edge research opportunities allow CEE to continue to graduate classes of creative thinkers and doers.

We are able to provide an engaging, enriching, and encouraging environment because of the support of our donors. Giving to CEE is a vote of confidence in our program, and helps to keep us at a competitive level with other world-class programs.

Gifts at all levels are needed and appreciated from alumni and friends. Undergraduate alumni participation rates also impact our national rankings in publications such as U.S. News & World Report.

Give where your heart is. 

Current CEE Giving Options

Please consider a gift to one of these funds, a general gift to the CEE department or to CMU, or a gift to a student organization or club that is close to your heart.

Larry CartwrightIn honor of Larry Cartwright’s memory, CEE alumni established the Lawrence Cartwright Support Fund for Teaching Professors, which will ensure that his name remains closely tied to CEE for generations to come, as well as honor his extensive history of giving to CMU.

Larry Cartright Emeritus Event




After service in the US Air Force, Larry Cartwright enrolled in Civil Engineering at Carnegie Mellon and completed his BSCE in 1976. He joined the Department staff as manager of the Civil Engineering Laboratories in 1977. In 1982 he was appointed additionally as an Instructor. While managing the labs and helping out with laboratory courses, he made time to complete a masters degree in Civil Engineering, in 1987. With the steady expansion of his teaching duties, Larry was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1990, Principal Lecturer in 2000, and Teaching Professor in 2004, the highest rank in the teaching faculty track.  

In 1994 Professor Cartwright received the Benjamin R. Teare Teaching Award from CIT, the highest teaching recognition from the College of Engineering. Winning the Teare Award puts one in the competition for the top teaching award at Carnegie Mellon, the Ryan Teaching Award, which Larry also won in 1994. Larry was recognized by the Pittsburgh Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers as the Professor of the Year in 1999. In 2001, he won a Best Paper Award from the American Society for Engineering Education for a presentation about our senior design course, and in 2004 he received the CIT Philip L. Dowd Fellowship Award for his work in our various undergraduate laboratories.

Professor Cartwright’s motivation and heart was always been in advising and working with students over his 38‐year career with the department. He was the instructor for a number of undergraduate courses including Solid Mechanics Lab, Fluid Mechanics Lab, Soil Mechanics Lab, Materials Lab, CEE Design, and Design and Construction. He developed imaginative senior capstone design projects, and also a unique design and construction course that yielded many permanent improvements on the Carnegie Mellon campus.

Professor Cartwright retired from Carnegie Mellon in June 2013, and taught part-time in the subsequent two academic years.

Dr. Elio D'AppoloniaEstablished with a leadership gift from the Devendra & Kshama Shukla Foundation, the Dr. Elio D’Appolonia Graduate Fellowship honors the significant accomplishments and mentorship of Dr. Elio D’Appolonia. Dr. D’Appolonia, a civil engineering faculty member from 1948 to 1956, helped to define and develop the multidisciplinary, creative problem-solving nature of civil engineering at Carnegie Mellon that remains a hallmark of the program.

2012 Dr. Elio D'Appolonia Fund Launch

Following in the Footsteps of Innovation


Recognizing Chris Hendrickson’s dedicated service to CMU and to his students, the Chris T. Hendrickson Undergraduate Travel Fund provides undergraduate students with the opportunity to travel for the purposes of professional development, such as attending a conference to present research projects.


Thanks to Steven J. Fenves, graduate students can receive travel support to conferences at which they will be presenting a paper based on their CEE research.  Professor Fenves' approach benefits both the student and the CEE department.

Steven J. Fenves Graduate Travel Fund

The Environmental Engineering Laboratories Fund will support the renovation of the 6000 sf CEE Porter Hall 207 laboratories used for environmental engineering education and research.  This $4.5M project is planned for 2019.

From poster sessions to professional speakers to department-wide meet-ups over breakfast and lunch, the CEE Department is known for sponsoring activities and events that not only develop valuable engineering knowledge and skills but also foster community and connection. Now you can support such events and activities directly through the new CEE Student Activities Fund.

“You’ll have the ability to designate precisely what you would like your gift to go towards, for example, a particular activity or project course,” explains Heather Cain, CEE Alumni Relations and Events Manager. “We’re excited because this is a completely new type of fund for CEE. It’s an opportunity to give back to things that you participated in while you were at CMU and to make a really direct and immediate impact on students.”

Your gift to the student activities fund can offset the cost of a variety of student activities such as the following:

  • Research Poster Sessions
  • Student Organization Events (ASCE, EWRI, Chi Ep)
  • 12-401 Project Course
  • Department-wide student focused events

If you’d like to specifically support an activity please contact Heather Cain to ensure your gift is properly allocated.

The CEE Strategic Fund provides flexibility to the department, allowing the department head to use funds where the department needs them most.  With this fund, CEE can create new opportunities for students and faculty, such as the summer research internship program.