Academy of pavement science and engineering assigns committees, task forces

Pavement academic leaders gathered on Saturday, April 23, to discuss white papers submitted by the founding members of the Academy of Pavement Science and Engineering (APSE) in January during the 95th annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board. The purpose of the meeting was to develop and refine the Academy’s road map and main academic activities and to define its next steps.

The all-day meeting, held at Hilton Chicago O’Hare Airport Hotel, hosted a great number of pavement engineering leaders from around the world. The meeting opened with a restatement of the Academy’s mission:

To serve the pavement science and engineering academic community through education, research, and professional service, and vision; and to strive to build safe, secure, and sustainable mobility for people and goods through academic excellence.

Research-, service-, and education-themed white papers were presented, and challenges and recommendations pertaining to each of the main areas were discussed.

At the organizational level, the group’s next step will be development of by-laws that will dictate the Academy’s future work, while at the educational level, four task groups will be established to address development of a body of knowledge; textbooks, labs, and problem sets; academic consortia; and outreach.

On the research front, a workshop will be held in April 2017 to discuss the group’s vision. In the professional service field, the expectation is to have case statements developed in summer 2016.

APSE’s task force committees established specific timelines for their respective activities and are planning to discuss overall progress in the fall. The next meeting of APSE founders will be held during the 96th annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board in Washington, D.C., in January 2017.