On the case: Rowden's helping solve transportation challenges

Cracking mysteries was what drew LaDonna Rowden, Illinois Department of Transportation’s bureau chief of research, to engineering.

“I tend to be drawn to mystery novels and whodunit shows, where you’re trying to solve what happened, and I find that in work as well,” she said.

Rowden has been with IDOT since her 1992 graduation from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, where she earned a bachelor’s in civil engineering.

The Nebraska native was named bureau chief of research in 2016 and now oversees three units at IDOT.

The first of those units is the Policy and Research Center Library, which houses technical documents, manages memberships and subscriptions and assists with reference research for IDOT’s staff.

The second, pavement technology, is where Rowden worked her way up through the ranks. The unit works with pavement design, rehabilitation methods and preservation strategies to maintain and improve specifications and policies.

The Pavement Technology unit also conducts nondestructive pavement testing to provide data for pavement management efforts.

The last unit, technical research, oversees federal funding for IDOT’s state and national research efforts. This unit ensures that federal funding is utilized to participate in research studies and technical service programs with the most benefit to IDOT.

Here Rowden enjoys seeing members of IDOT, industry and academia come together on joint projects to find solutions to IDOT’s challenges.

Integral to this collaboration is Illinois Center for Transportation, which began working with IDOT on joint research projects in 2005.

“Once I was named bureau chief, I was exposed to the whole picture of how ICT and the department work together,” she said. “The research really opened my eyes on how much influence we can have on changing the way transportation engineering is moving and looking forward into new practices and new technologies that are coming in.”

The program brings stakeholders together to solve key problems.

“When we come up with the results, we can look at how we implement those findings and make sure that we are seeing an improvement that becomes more cost-effective,” she said.

All in all, Rowden is proud of the impact IDOT and ICT have on the transportation industry, noting that both entities have seen “great benefits” from the relationship.

“IDOT has been able to utilize this cooperative program to see improvements with our policies by incorporating new materials and processes or to positively impact environmental issues,” she said.

“But, at the same time with those projects, ICT and U of I are seeing the benefits of staying on the cutting edge of engineering with academics and exposing their students to real-world issues,” she added.

Rowden’s also applying her expertise by serving on the Technical Review Panel of two joint projects with ICT.

In project “R27-203: Truck Platooning on Illinois Flexible Pavements,” researchers seek to enhance the design of autonomous and connected truck platoons — a group or convoy of connected trucks — to increase fuel efficiency and provide economic benefits while minimizing pavement damage.

The second project, “R27-204: Optimized Hot-mix Asphalt (HMA) Lift Configuration for Performance,” optimizes the performance of asphalt-concrete mixes and evaluates recent updates to IDOT’s policies and specifications.

Through these joint efforts, Rowden puts her mystery-solving skills to work to provide Illinois taxpayers with high-quality roadways.

“As an IDOT employee, we are stewards of the taxpayer’s dollars and using those cost-effectively to ensure they’ve got a transportation system out there that can get them where they need to go in a safe and effective manner,” she said.