Dr. Gayle F. Mitchell has chaired the Department of Civil Engineering at Ohio University since 1995, and is the Director of the Ohio Research Institute for Transportation and the Environment (ORITE), which she helped establish in 1987. In addition to her administrative role, Dr. Mitchell has contributed to teaching of undergraduate and graduate courses in the environmental area, as well as undergraduate basic engineering courses.  She has developed and presented workshops on water treatment, solid waste management, and erosion and sediment control. During her professional career she has conducted research on physical/ chemical treatment of water and waste water, erosion and sediment control, wetlands, mitigation of storm water runoff, components of solid waste landfills, highway winter maintenance and application of probes for subsurface investigations. Dr. Mitchell has over seventy publications. She is a registered Professional Engineer in Ohio and Mississippi. In addition, she has been appointed/ elected to numerous state, national and international boards and committees; currently she is a commissioner to the ABET, Inc. Engineering Accreditation Commission.

Research Activities

Current research interest is focused on storm water mitigation for linear transportation systems. Research is addressing mitigation of constituents in highway and bridge storm water runoff, such as suspended solids, oil/grease and metals. Treatment of constituents has been addressed using proprietary devices, as well as conventional techniques. Previous research included winter maintenance issues; assessment, monitoring and protocol for pretreatment for snow/ice. Complimented with this has been studies using bridge deck simulators and road way information systems for prediction of pretreatment for bridges.