Engineer Nick DeNichilo Creates Resilient Infrastructure for a Volatile Century

Nicholas DeNichilo ’73, M.S. ’78 marveled as a child at the construction equipment that brought buildings, bridges and highways to life before his eyes. Decades later, he still feels that magic. Comments such as “green energy is so exciting” regularly punctuate conversations about his daily work.

As the president and CEO of engineering giant Mott MacDonald, North America, DeNichilo now takes on transportation, water and energy infrastructure projects made vastly more complex by resiliency problems such as climate change and earthquakes.

In Los Angeles, for example, his firm is designing and providing project management for a 1.9-mile light rail line that will provide a single-seat ride throughout Los Angeles County, linking the metro area’s 80-station system to Southern California’s regional passenger rail, Metrolink. Mott MacDonald juggles disparate challenges along the route, which runs from the Little Tokyo/Arts District Station on the Gold Line to the 7th Street/Metro Center Station downtown: reducing noise and vibration at the Disney Concert Hall; avoiding disruptions along the Gold Line; and making sure the new line can withstand earthquakes.

By handling an expected 60,000 or more trips each weekday, an impressive number for a city built around cars, the new route advances California’s longstanding campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“I am very proud of our performance on sustainable infrastructure like the Los Angeles light rail line. We are making public transit more pleasant, efficient and accessible to all travelers in the LA area,” says DeNichilo, who was recently honored as an “Outstanding Alumnus” for his many contributions to the field by NJIT’s Newark College of Engineering.

While he still savors the thrill of ‘creating something from nothing’ that inspires so many engineers, experience has deepened that mission.

“Engineers are going to have to do a lot more to resonate with the public than simply build structures. We need to provide positive social outcomes,” he notes, adding, “When designing a water treatment plant, I think from the outset about the child who will be drinking that water in the future.”

He embraces modern tools such as machine learning that acquire knowledge of a system’s experiences and performance over the years and are thus able to predict events that may affect it. A noted expert on water projects, he returns to treatment plants as an example:

“If your water supply is from a section of a river that stretches 100 miles, it is subject to a lot of contamination in the form of runoff and discharges from upstream wastewater plants. As it flows downstream to the plant, water treatment plant operators adjust treatment scenarios to make it potable. We can use sensors along the way to measure factors such as pH, ammonia and biological contaminants, and we can take that data and learn from it and make adjustments via a neural network well before the water enters the treatment plant. The algorithms we can develop will anticipate these changes before the water enters the plant.”

On the NJIT campus, he views collaborations between his alma mater, Newark College of Engineering, and Ying Wu College of Computing as vital toward advancing these tools.

On the energy side, DeNichilo is enthusiastic about the rush of new renewable energy technologies that are transforming the sector.

“Renewable energy is coming on in a big way. Throughout our 60 offices in North America, we’ve got exciting projects in all sectors, from offshore wind to solar energy,” he notes. “And I’m not just talking about photovoltaic panels, but energy storage systems. This is a major new technology that will also transform cars, swapping out their combustion engine with batteries.”

Among offshore wind projects, Mott MacDonald has proposed a subsea high-voltage, direct current (HVDC) electric transmission cable corridor between Humboldt Bay and San Francisco Bay, among other infrastructure upgrades, that would enable the construction of offshore wind farms and transmission of the power to load centers. The deep waters of the Pacific Ocean, seismic activity and the variable geologic conditions of the ocean’s floor are some of the challenges engineers face.

“We thrive on solving the challenges associated with offshore wind infrastructure,” he says, noting that Mott MacDonald is the first company in its class to be independently certified to PAS 2060, the international standard for carbon neutrality.

But DeNichilo’s firm does not just take on the splashy and new. Much of what they do involves retrofitting aging infrastructure in cities large and small, such as upgrades to Boston’s deteriorating subway system, one of the oldest in the country. Replacing legacy lead pipes in urban water systems is also “a national imperative,” he says, noting the company’s work in cities from Washington, D.C, to Denver, to Jersey City, N.J.

His work has been awarded throughout his career. In 1999, he was named the American Society of Civil Engineer’s (ASCE) Engineer of the Year, while he also received the George Warren Fuller Award for his service in the water field from the New Jersey Section of the American Water Works Association. More recently, ASCE bestowed one of its highest honors, the Outstanding Projects And Leaders (OPAL) Lifetime Achievement award.

“I’m still excited about water projects, including some small state-of-the-art projects in places like Nepal,” he says, where the company is working with the government to develop new approaches toward small and medium-scale irrigation systems that take climate resilience into account.

NJIT’s Salute to Engineering Excellence honors this year reflect an intimate appreciation for his work around the globe, his public mission and his longstanding engagement with his alma mater, where he has served on the NJIT Board of Visitors, the Board of Overseers and as a co-vice chair of the Board of Trustees.

“It’s important to help shape how students will meet tomorrow’s needs for infrastructure,” he says simply. Our endowed Mott MacDonald scholarship also prepares for the future by ensuring the workplace will be diverse. A full half of the endowment supports students from underrepresented groups.”

“My parents were born in Italy and grew up as immigrants. When I walk on campus, I reflect back to 1969 when I started as a first-generation college student. It’s great to support students.”