Meet our faculty, Professor Cole Van De Ven

When most people think about greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that drive climate change, they tend to think about emissions occurring on the surface of the earth such as from vehicles, industry, and agriculture. However, just below the surface of the earth exists a massive potential source of GHGs resulting from a variety of human activities and natural processes such as energy development, waste storage, industrial contamination, permafrost thaw, and geological leakage. Dr. Cole Van De Ven is interested in the generation, release, migration, and emission of these subsurface gases. He also studies how these gases may reduce groundwater and soil quality. This research combines fundamental understanding of how gases flow, transfer to groundwater, and degrade in the subsurface, allowing environmental impacts to be quantified. Dr. Van De Ven’s research utilizes physical laboratory- and field-scale experiments coupled with numerical modeling techniques. His goal is to reduce the overall impacts of subsurface GHGs by developing sound understanding of underlying processes, environmental monitoring approaches, and engineering controls. Other areas of interest include the impacts of climate change on water quality, groundwater contamination from novel fuels, and groundwater remediation through natural source zone depletion.

Dr. Van De Ven joins the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering after completing a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering at Queen’s University and a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering at McMaster University. He also was an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow with the Energy and Environment Research Initiative (EERI) at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Van De Ven is a passionate teacher having taught courses on topics ranging from professional and teamwork skills learned by building and racing cardboard canoes to the fundamentals of groundwater flow.