Awards and honors

The achievements of several Illinois-Center-for-Transportation-affiliated faculty and students have recently been recognized with the following awards and honors:

1. CEE Professor Timothy Stark received Best Paper Awards for the following two papers:

“I-5 Skagit River Bridge Collapse Review,” Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities, ASCE, with R. Benekohal, L.A. Fahenstock, J.M. LaFave, J. He, and C Wittenkeller, July, 2017

“Monitoring Changes in Tie-Ballast Interaction in Disturbed Track”, 14th International Railway Engineering Conference, Edinburgh, Scotland, with S.T. Wilk, J.G. Rose, and Q. Liu, June, 2017.

2. Jie Lin, associate professor in the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Civil and Materials Engineering Department, was recently appointed Vice Chair of the TRB Section on Environment and Energy (ADC00), which oversees eight TRB committees.

3. The following University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign CEE students received awards:

James Bittner and Agustin Spalvier, advised by Professor John Popovics, received the 2016 ACI-James Instruments Student Award for Research on NDT of Concrete for their work on ICT/IDOT Project R27-146. This award recognizes meritorious and innovative research in concrete and concrete materials using nondestructive testing methods.

Angeli Gamez was selected as first place winner of the 6th International Transportation PhD Student Symposium Award. Angeli also received the 2017-2018 Airport Cooperative Research Program Graduate Research Award. Kudos to Angeli’s advisor, Professor Imad Al-Qadi.

Arturo Espinoza Luque, pursuing his graduate degree under the guidance of Professor Al-Qadi, received the 2017-2018 William Finkbiner Memorial Scholarship from the Illinois Asphalt Pavement Association. The scholarships aims to promote knowledge of hot-mix asphalt and pavements.

Issam Qamhia and Izak Said were selected as recipients of the 2017 National Student Scholarship from the National Arab American Associations of Engineers and Architects. Izak also received the 2017-2018 Airport Cooperative Research Program Graduate Research Award. Issam and Izak are pursuing their doctoral degrees under the supervision of Professors Erol Tutumluer and Imad Al-Qadi, respectively.