Bill Knocke joined the Virginia Tech faculty in 1979 and served as the department head of the Charles E. Via, Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering from 1995-2009. He currently serves as a Professor and Associate Department head in the department.

Knocke has been recognized with many professional honors and awards including the Walter Huber National Research Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE) and Outstanding Faculty Award Recipient from the Virginia State Council for Higher Education. He is often recognized as a favorite professor in the department. “Dr. Knocke goes above and beyond to meet with our design teams weekly to guide and assist with our projects, ” said student Jamie Timmer. “When the project was graded, he also went above and beyond to give us helpful critiques relevant to the water and wastewater field.”

Knocke’s area of expertise is in physical-chemical treatment of water and wastewater, chemistry of aquatic systems, sludge treatment and disposal, and hazardous waste assessment and treatment. He teaches courses such as Water and Wastewater Treatment Design, Advanced Environmental Chemistry, and Environmental Engineering Design II.

Knocke received his B.S. in civil engineering and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Missouri before joining the faculty at Virginia Tech.

The G.V. Loganathan award is determined by a poll of current CEE students who feel that faculty affected their education in a positive way through teaching, research, advising, involvement with student organization or in other ways. The award was formerly known as the CEE Faculty Achievement Award, but the name was changed with unanimous support from the department in memory of Dr. G.V. Loganathan who received the award five times during his tenure at Virginia Tech.