Oklahoma Transportation Research Day 2021 Presentations
Building Information Modeling (BIM) for Transportation Infrastructure
Dr. Adeeba Abdul Raheem
Abeeda Raheem received her Ph.D. in construction management from the University of Florida. She holds multiple master’s degrees in building construction, environmental engineering, and civil engineering from UF. She is serving as an assistant professor and director of the Construction Safety program at the University of Texas, El Paso. Raheem is also an invited member of the President’s Advisory Committee on Sustainability. She has received more than $2.5 million in research funding various federal agencies such as the U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Department of State, National Science Foundation, and Federal Highway Administration. Her research interests include sustainable cities, construction safety, and construction management. Raheem has received several prestigious national and regional awards including the 2016 ASCE Excellence in Civil Engineering Education Fellowship, 2020 UTEP College of Engineering Award for Teaching Excellence, 2020 Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers STAR Award for Educator of the Year, and 2021 American Society of Engineering Education-GSW section Award for Outstanding Young Faculty. She is an Envision™ Sustainability Professional, a certified associate member of the Design-Build Institute of America (Assoc. DBIA™) and an OSHA Certified Master Trainer.
Thinking Beyond Incremental Advances in Pavement Science and Engineering
Amit Bhasin
Amit Bhasin is a professor of civil engineering and director of the Center for Transportation Research at the University of Texas at Austin. His research and teaching interests are in the area of infrastructure materials. He performs research that relates fundamental properties of constituent materials to the engineering performance of composites, such as asphalt concrete mixtures. Bhasin has led several research projects sponsored by state and federal agencies including the Texas Department of Transportation, National Cooperative Highway Research Program, Federal Highway Administration, National Science Foundation, and others. Bhasin is actively involved in several national and international organizations and committees pertaining to research in the area of pavements and materials. His research and teaching have been recognized through several awards and honors including the National Science Foundation CAREER award, the CUTC-ARTBA award for outstanding contributions to research and teaching in transportation, and the University of Texas System Regents outstanding teaching award, The University of Texas at Austin’s Presidents Associates teaching award and the American Society for Civil Engineers Walter L. Huber Research Prize.
Oklahoma Rocks! A Geologic Perspective
Ben Rojas
Ben Rojas is the materials division geologist for Oklahoma Transportation. After receiving his bachelor’s degree in geology from the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ, Ben proceeded to work in the mining industry for mining giant Freeport-McMoRan in Green Valley, AZ. He served there as the mine geologist from 2010 to 2012 where he performed mapping, geological interpretation, ore control, and core logging. He then began working for Kleinfelder as a field geologist. In 2014, Ben moved to Tulsa, OK and transferred to the Tulsa-Kleinfelder office where he performed geotechnical, engineering geology and construction materials consulting, focusing on commercial, DOT and Federal work. In 2017, Ben began his career with ODOT as the materials division geologist where he is in charge of all state-wide and out-of-state quarry qualifications, in addition to assisting field operations. Ben is a Tucson, Arizona native who enjoys traveling and seeing new landscapes and of course collecting minerals.
Diverging Diamond Interchange: SH-6 Over I-40 Elk City, Oklahoma Beckham County
Brent Almquist
Brent Almquist received his bachelor of science degree from Kansas State University in December 1982. Almquist started working for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation in June 1983 at the Altus Residency and was part of the team that added a parallel lane to US-62 East of Altus to the Kiowa/Comanche County Line. In 1987, he was transferred to the Clinton Residency. In 1989, Almquist became the assistant resident engineer. In 1991, he was transferred to the District Five Headquarters at Clinton where worked his way to become the area maintenance engineer, then the assistant division engineer, and later in 1997 the division engineer. While working there, Almquist assisted with auditing, completed construction projects and oversaw the maintenance and construction for 11 counties and 104 miles of 1-40 in southwest Oklahoma and the budgeting for the field division. Almquist oversaw construction of many bridges including those over the Canadian River, the Red River, and the Washita River. He also oversaw roadway projects along the 1-40 Corridor, the US-270 Corridor, the US-183 Corridor, and the SH-6 Corridor. Almquist assisted Will Snipes, the District Five construction engineer, on the Diverging Diamond Interchange on 1-40: Exit 38 at Elk City, which was the first interchange of this type to be constructed in Oklahoma.
TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program
Chris Hedges
Chris Hedges is the director of cooperative research programs at Transportation Research Board—this division includes NCHRP as well as programs in transit, airports, and behavioral traffic safety, with a total annual research budget in excess of $65 million. Hedges has more than 30 years of experience in managing transportation research programs and projects. He started with TRB in 1999 as a senior program officer and served as manager of the NCHRP for 2.5 years before being appointed as director in 2016. In 2019, Chris led a business process review to select, acquire and implement new project and portfolio management software that facilitated the transition from paper-based procedures to fully digital operations. Before coming to TRB, Hedges was the director of research and information services for the Transportation Association of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario.
Analysis of Traffic Speed Deflection Device Data for Pavement Structural Evaluation
Dr. Deb Mishra
Debakanta (Deb) Mishra is an associate professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Oklahoma State University, where he teaches courses in the areas of geotechnical engineering, pavement engineering, and railroad engineering. Mishra joined OSU in August 2019 after spending five years as an assistant professor in the civil engineering department at Boise State University. Prior to that, he completed his Ph.D. and post-doctoral work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Deb’s research interests are in the areas of (1) advanced laboratory characterization of pavement materials; (2) instrumentation, performance monitoring, and numerical modeling of civil engineering infrastructure; and (3) application of machine learning and artificial intelligence for network-level pavement/railroad condition assessment. He serves as an active member of several TRB and ASCE committees. He has been the chair of the TRB’s Unbound Granular Material Sub-Committee since 2016.
Aviation and Aerospace Workforce: How Drone Use Can Launch us into the Next Decade
Grayson Ardies
Grayson Ardies has been the Oklahoma State director of aeronautics since November 2020. Ardies began working for the commission in 2009 as an intern. In 2016, he became manager of the Airport Division and was deputy director from January 2019 through October 2020. Ardies was unanimously selected by the seven-member commission to fill the state director of aeronautics position, beginning November 2020. He has led many statewide agency initiatives, including a three-year effort working with the state legislature on the protection of military training airspace. He also managed a two-year project involving economic impact of Aerospace and Aviation which established the industry as the second largest economic engine in the state. Ardies was awarded the honorable 2020 State Aviation Distinguished Service Award from the National Association of State Aviation Officials. He was also listed in the Power 15 List in Aviation and Aeronautics in Oklahoma by the Journal Record in 2020. Ardies graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in aviation management with double minors in business administration and air traffic control. As part of his education through the aviation program, he also received a commercial pilot’s license with single and multi-engine instrument ratings and is a certified flight instructor.
Lessons Learned from Forensic Investigations of Pavements in Oklahoma
Kenneth Hobson
Kenneth Hobson started his career at ODOT as an asphalt plant inspector in 1984. Later he served as an ODOT asphalt mix design technician. After obtaining his second degree, a bachelor of science in civil engineering from the University of Oklahoma, he helped ODOT implement the performance graded binder testing protocols. Hobson was certified as an asphalt binder technician by the Asphalt Institute, through their National Binder Technician Certification program. He served as ODOT’s bituminous branch manager until his retirement at the end of 2015. He currently manages the two asphalt laboratories at OU: Broce Laboratory and Asphalt Binders Laboratory. Hobson has conducted many asphalt pavement forensic investigations while working at ODOT and OU and has co-authored several peer-reviewed journal papers along with the members of his team at OU. He is a licensed professional engineer in Oklahoma.
Opportunities: Participating in ACRP
Marci Greenberger
Marci Greenberger is manager of the Airport Cooperative Research Program for the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. ACRP seeks to identify solutions for airport operators on a wide range of issues, including operations, maintenance, safety and security. Prior to joining ACRP, Greenberger spent over 18 years in operations and senior management positions at airports in Rhode Island, Indiana, and California. Greenberger is an accredited airport executive by the American Association of Airport Executives, holds a masters in business administration from California State University-Northridge, and earned a bachelor of science degree in aviation management from the Ohio State University.
Contingency Factors to Account for Risk in Early Construction Cost Estimates for Transportation Infrastructure Projects
Nils J. Gransberg
Nils Gransberg is the vice president of Gransberg & Associates, Inc., an international construction engineering and management consulting firm. He also teaches project management courses in OU's Gallogly College of Engineering and in the Construction Science Department, ASCE's Construction Engineering Certificate program, and courses in alternative project delivery methods for private and public clients. He received his B.S. in construction science from the University of Oklahoma and his M.S. in geological engineering from the Missouri School of Science & Technology at Rolla. Gransberg is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in general engineering at the University of Oklahoma. He is a retired U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officer and has worked in the transportation, commercial, and oil and gas construction sectors. He lives in Lexington, Oklahoma with his wife Scarlett and daughters Kaitlynn and Annabelle.
Quantifying Ice Damage in Field Concrete
Tyler Ley
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. Ley 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. 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.