Friday, November 14, 2014

Wesley Kumfer Selected as Student of the Year Award Nominee for the SPTC

Wesley Kumfer, doctoral candidate in transportation engineering at Texas Tech University, has been selected as the Student of the Year award nominee to represent the Southern Plains Transportation Center. He will be recognized at the Council of University Transportation Center's awards banquet on Jan. 10, 2015 in Washington, D.C. in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board.

For the past 23 years, the U.S. Department of Transportation has honored an outstanding student from each University Transportation Center at a special ceremony held during the Transportation Research Board's annual meeting. Each student is recognized during the ceremony by a departmental official; the administrator of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration.
 

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

SPTC Highlighted in OU CEES Communique Publication

The University of Oklahoma's School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science produced a summer newsletter, Communique, for alumni and friends of CEES. Included in the publication, pages 14-17 is a story on the SPTC. To view the PDF of the publication, click here.

Mazari Awarded Second Place in Paper Competition by the Transportation & Development Institute of the ASCE and the FHWA


Mehran Mazari, postdoctoral research and teaching associate at the University of Texas at El Paso, has been awarded second place in the graduate category by the Transportation & Development Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). The paper, entitled “Novel Approaches in Visualization of Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) Data. 
 
The award presentation will take place on the morning of Sunday, January 11, 2015, at the LTPP State Coordinators’ Meeting.

BIO:
Mehran earned his Bachelor’s and Master of Science degrees in Civil Engineering from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. In January 2011, he joined the Civil Engineering doctoral program at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). Since then, he has been working as a graduate research assistant, under the direction of Prof. Soheil Nazarian, at the Center for Transportation Infrastructure Systems (CTIS), a member of a national and a regional University Transportation Research Center (UTRC) consortium by the US Department of Transportation, working on several federal and state funded research projects. His work has so far been published in several high quality journals and peer-reviewed international conferences.

Throughout his academic career, Mehran has been honored with several fellowships and awards including the International Road Federation (IRF) Fellowship in 2014 and Dwight David Eisenhower Fellowship from the Federal Highway Administration of United States Department of Transportation in two consecutive years (2012 and 2013). He has received the Cotton Memorial Graduate Scholarship from The University of Texas at El Paso in 2012. Maintaining a GPA of 4.00, he has been privileged to become a member of Golden Key International Honor Society, Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society and Chi Epsilon Civil Engineering Honor Society.

Mehran is currently a postdoctoral research and teaching associate at The University of Texas at El Paso. He is keenly interested to continue his academic career as an assistant professor of Civil Engineering focusing on both teaching and research activities.

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Kulicki to Present SPTC Seminar Dec. 4

BIO:
A graduate of Lafaye.e College and Lehigh University, Dr. Kulicki has over forty years of experience in virtually all aspects of bridge analysis and design including suspension, cable-­stayed, and long-span truss and arch bridges. He joined Modjeski and Masters in 1974, retired from full time service at the end of 2013 and is now Chairman Emeritus and Senior Technical Advisor. His experience includes design, research, code development, and teaching. Designs he has led have won many awards including the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement awards and three American Institute of Steel Construction’s (AISC’s) Prize Bridge awards. Kulicki has authored more than 80 technical papers and presentations, and has contributed to three engineering handbooks. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and has received numerous awards, most recently AISC’s Kimbrough Award. John is both a user of, and a contributor to, the AASHTO Bridge Design Specifications having led the 50-­member team of experts in the development of the AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications.

ABSTRACT
The bridge design specifications promulgated by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) is the primary source of technical guidance for highway bridge designers in the United States. The various states may make exceptions to these provisions and the basic document has been the basis of national specifications in many other countries.

This presentation will discuss the pre-­AASHTO years from the late 1800’s until the early 1900’s and review the design philosophies utilized by AASHTO to provide structural safety. Engineers have been reacting to the lessons taught by natural forces, man-­made loadings and socio-­economic factors throughout history. This presentation also looks at how failures caused by underestimating natural forces and material limitations have influenced bridge design specifications in the U.S., particularly the earlier AASHTO Standard Specifications and the current AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications, as well as the knowledge base and the state of professional practice. Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU). Funding will continue for the LTBP program in the current legislation, Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-­21).