Dr. Kelly Regal

Kelly Regal joined the Federal Highway Administration’s Turner Fairbank Highway Research Center in January 2020 as the new Associate Administrator for Research, Development, and Technology, becoming the first woman to lead the center in its 70-year history. Prior to her appointment at FHWA, she served as the Associate Administrator of Research and Information Technology at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Regal joined FMCSA in 2009 and has worked in the transportation industry her entire career. She has more than 30 years of research, engineering and information technology leadership and management experience in the private sector and in the Federal government. Regal holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J., a master’s degree in aeronautical science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and a Ph.D. in transportation engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Dr. Dennis Martin

Dennis Martin is a professor and turfgrass extension/ research specialist at the Oklahoma State University. He holds the Distinguished Huffine Professorship in the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture at OSU. He received his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees in horticulture from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dennis has led the OSU Roadside Vegetation Management Research and Training Team since October 1990. His work in right-of-way includes research and training on adapted vegetation and management that provides an erosion resistant and resilient ground cover that promotes motorist safety, is aesthetically pleasing, is affordable, and that provides ecosystem services. His fine turf work involves evaluation of and education about low-input as well as intensive input turfgrasses for lawns, parks, grounds, golf courses, and athletic fields in Oklahoma. He also assists in the development of new turf-type bermudagrasses and is a co-inventor of OSU’s Tahoma 31, Latitude 36, Northbridge, Patriot, Riviera, and Yukon bermudagrasses that are used on lawns, golf courses and sports fields across the U.S. and abroad.

Dr. Atorod Azizinamini

Atorod Azizinamini is the Vasant Surti professor of civil engineering; director of Accelerated Bridge Construction University Transportation Center; director of Moss School of Construction, Infrastructure, and Sustainability; and the director of Preeminent Institute for Resilient and Sustainable Coastal Infrastructure at the Florida International University. He has led several major multi-disciplinary bridge engineering-related initiatives. He is a founder of two major transportation field organizations: The National Bridge Research Organization at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the Center for Accelerated Bridge Construction at Florida International University. He has developed several bridge engineering products and systems that are being used nationally and internationally.

Dr. Tyler Ley

Dr. Tyler Ley has more than 20 years of experience in the fields of structural and concrete materials engineering. During this time he has worked as an engineer with a design consultant, construction contractor, government agency, and as a professor. Some of the awards that he has received include: the Halliburton Excellent Young Teaching Award in 2011, the Williams Foundation Professor in 2013 for the College of Engineering, the ACI Walter P. Moore Faculty Achievement Award in 2014, the Researcher of the Year Award from the College of Engineering in 2014, Halliburton Excellent Young Professor in 2014, the OSU Regents Research Award in 2014, and the ACPA Martin J. Knutson Award in 2017 and was named the outstanding professor at a research university by the Oklahoma Foundation of Excellence in 2018. He was named one of the Most Influential People in the Concrete Industry by Concrete Construction Magazine in 2019. Dr. Ley is very active in the American Concrete Institute where he is a voting member of the Concrete Durability, Material Science, Concrete Proportioning, and Sustainability Technical committees.

Dr. Anand Puppala

Dr. Anand Puppala currently serves as A. P. Wiley and Florence Chair of Zachry Civil and Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M University and is also an Associate Director of Center for Infrastructure Renewal (CIR), both appointments started since September, 2019. Dr. Puppala is the current chair of Soil Mechanics section (AFS00) of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) and is a member of Design and Construction group of TRB. He also chaired American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)’s Geotechnical Institute’s (GI) “Engineering Geology and Site Characterization” committee and TRB committee on ‘Soil and Rock Instrumentation’. He is a current member of ASCE-GI’s Technical Coordination Council (TCC). Dr. Puppala also served as President of United States Universities Council on Geotechnical Education and Research (USUCGER) from 2007-2009.

Dr. Micah Hale

Micah Hale is the head of the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Arkansas. He has served in that position since August 2016. Micah Hale has been with the University of Arkansas since 2002. In his research, he focuses on improving the performance of concrete and developing industry standards for new types of concrete. One of his most recent projects involved finding a solution to cracking caused by a process called alkali-silica reaction, which has been compromising parts of Interstate 49 south of Fayetteville.

Hale received his bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees from the University of Oklahoma. He has received the George D. Nasser Award from the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute, the Charles and Nadine Baum Award for Teaching from the University of Arkansas, and the Outstanding Teacher Award from the Department of Civil Engineering. He is a fellow of the American Concrete Institute and was selected to participate in the National Academy of Engineering's Frontiers of Engineering Education symposium in 2010.

Dr. Jason Vogel

Jason Vogel currently serves as the director of the Oklahoma Water Survey and as a professor in the School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science at the University of Oklahoma. For more than 25 years, Vogel has worked to facilitate and develop solutions for water issues throughout the Great Plains, with a specialization in stormwater and stream management. Prior to joining the faculty at OU, Vogel held faculty and research positions at Oklahoma State University in the Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering and at the U.S. Geological Survey. He is a registered professional engineer.

Dr. Royce Floyd

Royce Floyd is an associate professor in the School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science at the University of Oklahoma and is a registered professional engineer in Oklahoma. Currently, his research is focused on extending the life of transportation infrastructure using innovative concrete materials, such as ultra-high performance concrete. He has been PI or Co-PI on more than fifteen projects sponsored by ODOT, SPTC, and ABC-UTC focused on bridge behavior, evaluation, and repair. He teaches courses on engineering mechanics, reinforced concrete, prestressed concrete, and structural wood design at OU. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute, and American Concrete Institute.

Dr. Soheil Nazarian

Soheil Nazarian is the McIntosh Murchison chair professor of Civil Engineering and the director of the Center for Transportation Infrastructure Systems at The University of Texas at El Paso. He has more than 35 years of experience in the areas of design and evaluation related to geotechnical and transportation infrastructure and lifeline. He has significantly contributed to the body of knowledge in construction, quality management and mechanistic characterization of transportation infrastructure. He has been the PI and Co-PI of more than 100 research projects funded by various federal and state agencies. Nazarian has been the author or coauthor of more than 250 technical articles in journals and conference proceedings primarily sponsored by the ASCE, and the Transportation Research Board. Nazarian is the Chair of the Geotechnical Instrumentation and Modeling Committee of the Transportation Research Board. He serves on the Executive Board of the International Society of Intelligent Construction.

Dr. Amy Cerato

Amy Cerato is the Rapp Foundation Presidential Professor of civil engineering and environmental science at the University of Oklahoma. She is actively involved in research and consulting in geotechnical engineering, specifically focusing on soil stabilization, expansive soil mitigation and foundation design in problematic soils. She is a registered professional engineer in Oklahoma. She is the author of more than 60 technical papers and the recipient of the 2009 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and 2008 National Science Foundation CAREER award. She is a member of the DFI Helical Pile and Tiebacks Committee and the ASCE GeoInstitute Committee of Engineering Geology and Site Characterization.