ICT researchers, UIUC graduate students travel to China for doctoral seminar

Harbin Institute of Technology, one of the top universities in China, recently hosted a China-United States Doctoral Forum on Transportation Science and Engineering. The goal of the seminar, held at Harbin on December 16 and 17, was to foster international collaboration and to allow students to see their research in a global context. Five ICT researchers each accompanied one of their advisees to the forum. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign attendees included:

• Professor Imad Al-Qadi, Advisee Jaime Hernandez
• Professor Bill Buttlar, Advisee Brian Hill
• Professor Yangfeng Ouyang, Advisee Yun Bai
• Professor Jeff Roesler, Advisee Alex Brand
• Professor Erol Tutumluer, Advisee Yu Qian

Five top paper awards were presented to the students, and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign students earned three of these. Hernandez, Brand and Qian each were honored.

“We worked together with Harbin to launch the first Doctoral Annual Symposium on Transportation Science and Engineering. It was a great chance for our students to network with other graduate students with similar research interests and to experience another culture,” said ICT director Imad Al-Qadi. The first seminar was such a success that a second one is being planned for 2013 and will be hosted by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Al-Qadi noted.

“This was a great opportunity for us,” said doctoral student Yu Qian. “It was excellent to exchange ideas with other doctoral students and faculty from around the world whose research is similar to mine and hear different perspectives. Also, our hosts made us feel very welcome and it was great to make new friends.”

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign doctoral student Brian Hill agreed, stating, “It was very interesting and beneficial to learn about transportation research being conducted in China. There are many opportunities for us to work together, and I hope our trip sets the stage for further collaborations between the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Harbin Institute of Technology.”

The seminar attracted graduate students and faculty from all throughout the United States and China. Other Universities attending included Texas A & M University, University of Tennessee, Mississippi State University, China’s Ministry of Transport and Road Research Institute, Jilin Transportation Research Institute, Liaoning Traffic Institute of Science and Technology, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kung University, Chang’an University, Tongji University and Southeast University. Al-Qadi and Professor Dallas Little of Texas A & M University gave the keynote addresses. Al-Qadi and and Tan Yiqiu of the Harbin Institute of Technology acted as co-chairs of the two day event that discussed pavement technology, traffic management and planning, and traffic safety.