104th annual T. H. E. Conference

More than a thousand industry professionals came out for the 104th annual Illinois Transportation and Highway Engineering Conference at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to discuss the safe and economical movement of people and goods across the state, country, and the world.

Attendees included transportation engineers, officials, technicians, faculty, and students. The conference was held at the Illini Union from Feb. 27–28, 2018 with pre-conference activities on Feb. 26.

UIUC Civil and Environmental Engineering professor Jeffery Roesler served as the director of the conference, which featured a wide array of technical presentations, agency and industry updates, interactive exhibits, and pre-conference short courses.

ICT Director and Bliss Professor of Engineering at UIUC Imad L. Al-Qadi helped lead one of those short courses, titled 101 Pavement Life Cycle Assessment.

The main conference included general sessions in the morning followed by afternoon breakout sessions on topics such as bridges and structures; design, construction, and environment; traffic, operations, and safety; and local roads and streets.

Al-Qadi updated the crowd on ICT research projects and new endeavors, including the newly formed Smart Transportation Infrastructure Initiative. ICT Project R27-145, “Drilled Shaft Design in Weak Illinois Rocks,” was also highlighted during one of the general sessions. Primary Investigator and CEE Professor Timothy Stark presented that research.

ICT and IDOT also presented several awards during this year’s conference, including an award for Technical Review Panel Chair of the Year, which was awarded to Bill Kramer.

The High-Impact Research of the Year Award recognized Project R27-SP28: Evaluation of PG Graded Asphalts with Low Levels of ReOB and Project R27-162: Chemical and Compositional Characterization of Recycled Binders. TRP Chair Ronald Price (IDOT) and Principal Investigators B. K. Sharma (UIUC) and Hasan Ozer (UIUC) were presented awards for their work on those projects. Researchers, students, and TRP members also received recognition for their part in the projects. This included Greg Renshaw, Khaled Hasiba, Imad Al-Qadi, Jing Ma, Bidhya Kunwar, Punit Singhvi, N. Rajagopalan, Violet Goodman, Matt Mueller, Dennis Oehmke, Brian Pfeifer, Vickie Prill, Jim Trepanier, Tom Zehr, and Kelly Morse.

The 105th annual T. H. E. Conference will take place from Feb. 26-27 2019, with pre-conference activities on Feb. 25. For more information, visit the THE Conference website.