2023 Summer Symposium
Click here to view the Symposium program
The 2023 Summer Symposium was held on Monday, July 24, 2023, July 24 from 8:30 am to 4:30pm at the OSU Hamm Institute for American Energy in the OKC Innovation District. The Annual Oklahoma Summer Transportation Symposium is sponsored by the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, hosted by the Oklahoma State University (OSU) in collaboration with the University of Oklahoma (OU). The summer symposium serves as a forum to network, discuss, and understand transportation issues we face in Oklahoma for engineers interested in addressing some of these challenges, as well as to gain a better understanding of career options for civil engineering students. Symposium topics cover bridges, pavements, materials, planning, construction, geotechnical, and environmental issues. The symposium includes both podium and poster sessions.
150 participants, which was the cap number for the event, had registered on Eventbrite for the event, including the speakers and moderators of the Symposium. Around 170 participants showed up in person at the event. The distribution of the registrants is shown in Figure 1 for the various sectors.
Figure 1 Distribution of Registrants (by Sector)
The detailed program for the 2023 Symposium can be accessed at Symposium website https://sites.google.com/view/oktransportation/meetings/2023-meeting?authuser=0.
· Dr. Paul Tikalsky, Dean of CEAT at OSU, delivered the opening remarks at the Symposium.
· Mr. Brian Talor, Chief Engineer at ODOT; Mr. Chris Wagner, Pavement and Materials Technical Director for the FHWA Pavement and Materials Technical Services Team delivered their keynote talks in the morning keynote session, while Dr. Nii Okine, Chair and Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Maryland talked during lunch. Mrs. Joni Seymour, Chief Innovation Officer, Oklahoma Transportation Cabinet, chaired the morning keynote session, and Dr. Musharraf Zaman, Professor at OU, moderated the lunch keynote.
· Dr. Fan Yin, National Center of Asphalt Technology (NCAT), gave a talk on the best practices of balanced mix design (BMD) from the national perspective, while Mr. David Vivanco presented the implementation of BMD in the state of Oklahoma.
· Mr. Gary Hook, ODOT Implementation Project Engineer, delivered his talk titled “It is YOUR Research” and debriefed the implementation and research activities and procedures at ODOT.
· A total of 20 speakers in five technical sessions delivered their presentations. The moderators of the five technical sessions are: Waseem Fazal, Oklahoma Division, FHWA; Norb Delatte, M.R. Lohmann Endowed Professor and Head, OSU; Yongwei Shan, Civil Engineering, OSU; Shreya Vemuganti, Assistant Professor, OU; Mohemad Elkashef, Assistant Professor, OSU.
Figure 2 On-site Photo of the 2023 Oklahoma Transportation Symposium
14 poster presentations were prepared by both graduate and undergraduate students from OSU and OU. The Poster easels and foam boards recycled after last year’s symposium were re-used this year.
Catering in the form of continental breakfast and lunch was provided by Panera Bread Midwest City.
