UIUC/ICT Alumni Spotlight: Jun Yoo, PhD 2007

After graduating from UIUC in May 2007 with a PhD in Civil Engineering, Jun Yoo is working as a Senior Researcher in the Highway Facility Research Division at the Korea Institute of Construction Technology (KICT). He is responsible for calibrating all the developed models for the pavement design guide for the Korea Pavement research program (KPRP).

The Korean government launched the KPRP program 8 years ago. They are currently developing a pavement design guide and will soon release a new pavement design program. Jun has worked on this project for the past year.

Besides this KPRP program, the Korean government will launch another new project called SMART (Sustainable, Mobility, Automation, Reliability, and Tomorrow) highway project, which includes various research programs such as the KPRP and test-bed constructions. The target design speed-limit of this highway is 160km/hr. Recently, ICT Director Imad Al-Qadi agreed to join this project as an international research partner.

While at UIUC, Jun worked on ICT project R59, Evaluation of Pavement Damage Due to New Tire Designs. He says that his experience working with flexible pavement dynamic response analysis for various tire configurations at ICT has been extremely valuable to his professional work in Korea. Jun says, "As an alumni of UIUC, I am very proud to have a major role in Korean pavement research program and the SMART highway project."

For more information about the KICT and the KPRP, visit http://www.kitc.re.kr.

Photos: Jun Yoo (top) and KICT complex (bottom)