Kent Seminar Series kicks off with exciting opportunities for professionals

The fall 2018 Kent Seminar Series kicked off with an exciting opportunity for professionals to earn Professional Development Hours or Continuing Education Units for attending. That opportunity is still available to attendees who wish to hear Kent speakers either in person or online. 

The fall season started a bit early this year with a special guest in July. Zhen Leng, associate professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University and director of the Hong Kong Road Research Laboratory presented, “Upcycling of Waste Plastic into Functionalized Additives for Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement Mixtures: An Exploratory Study.”

Other notable topics included University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign professor Erol Tutumluer’s presentation on, “Engineered Use of Aggregate Base – Inverted Pavement Design,” Illinois Department of Transportation engineer of construction operations Justan Mann’s presentation on, “IDOT Construction Overview and Highlights,” and engineering and technical policy director Randy Weingart’s presentation, “Turning Pavement Design Upside Down.” Weingart is with the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association.

Attendees also heard research findings on the following topics from the following list of Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering graduate students:

• Punit Singvhi: “Development of Long-Term Aging Protocol for Asphalt Mixtures Using the Illinois Flexibility Index Test (I-FIT).”
• Quang Tran: “Integration of Non-Contact Ultrasonic and Computer Vision for Sawcut Timing.”
• Aniruddha Baral: “Air Pollutant Removal and Self-Cleaning Properties of Photocatalytic Cements.”
• Wenting Hou: “Evaluation of Ballast Behavior under Different Tie Support Conditions Using Discrete Element Modeling.”

Presentations will continue through December and include a visit from Michigan State University Civil and Environmental Engineering associate professor  M. Emin Kutay as well as Concrete Stability Hub executive director and Massachusetts Institute of Technology research scientist Jeremy Gregory.

There will be a brief hiatus in lectures for the holiday break. All lectures are broadcast live on YouTube and include real-time, interactive participation in discussions for attendees joining the lectures remotely. View any seminars you may have missed in our archive.

The Kent Seminar Series is sponsored by the Paul F. Kent Memorial Fund, established in 1977 to support education in transportation engineering.

Paul Kent was a 1920 UIUC graduate with a degree in Civil Engineering. Throughout his professional career, he expressed the highest regard and great esteem for the education in civil engineering he received at the University of Illinois. Kent dedicated himself to civic service in Illinois and surrounding states. He was the founder and president of the University of Illinois Civil Engineering Alumni Association, and was the recipient of the U of I Loyalty Award and the Civil Engineering Distinguished Alumnus Award.