Professor Dr. Zhihui Sun, the chair of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, for her tremendous help, invaluable support, constructive guidance, inspiring encouragement, and financial aid throughout my whole Ph.D. study. As an "old" guy pursuing an advanced degree abroad after working in the industry for more than eight years, I always struggled for my academic progress. Dr. Sun strategized all the significant training for me, such as technical writing, classroom teaching,

more »

... us training, and conference presentations, etc. She also advised me on going through all the details timely and smoothly. Long story short, it is hard to find words to express the full measure of my appreciation to my dear advisor Dr. Zhihui Sun. So please accept my vehement gratitude here! Next, I extend my appreciation to my dissertation committee members, Dr. Nageshwar R. Bhaskar, Dr. Thomas D. Rockaway, and Dr. Noppadon Sathitsuksanoh (Tik) for their elaborate guidance, scientific suggestion, and academically challenging. It is a great horror for me to work as a teaching assistant for Dr. Bhaskar for multiple courses. It was really a joyful experience. Dr. Rockaway is a real gentleman helping me settle down from day one here and advised me to adapt to the new academic life. Dr. Tik is an enthusiastic researcher having a lot of formal and informal discussions with me that helped me further consolidate my knowledge with critical thinking skills. v I would also like to acknowledge Dr. J. P. Mohsen, the former chair of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department and the current associate dean of J.B. Speed Engineering School, for his generosity and endless help. I would like to appreciate Mr. Bernie Miles, our great technician, for helping me in solving all the technical issues in the lab. I also want to thank Dr. Biyun Shi from the Chemical Engineering Department of UofL and Sihang Chen from the Department of Chemical Engineering, Tianjin Normal University, for broadening my knowledge on Chemistry and Gas Chromatography implementations. It is very important to my research! My thanks also go to my dear friend Dr.