Via Report - Transportation Infrastructure and System Engineering

TISE faculty were honored with many recognitions over the past year. Hesham Rakha became a Canadian Academy of Engineering Fellow and an Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association Fellow. Rakha was also honored with the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research by the College of Engineering. Alexander Brand received an NSF CAREER award for his project titled “Nanoscale Interfacial Phenomena and Reaction Kinetics of Calcium Silicate Minerals in Cements.” Brand also received a 2023 College of Engineering Certificate of Teaching Excellence from Virginia Tech. Antonio Trani received the 2023 ASCE Frank M. Masters Award. Bryan Katz received the Wilbur S. Smith Distinguished Transportation Educator Award. This award is one of ITE’s top honors, recognizing an educator who has made an outstanding contribution to the transportation profession by relating academic studies to the actual practice of transportation. The Virginia Tech ITE Traffic Bowl Team, advised by Katz won the Virginia Section traffic bowl and won the preliminary round of the Southern District traffic bowl. Gerardo Flintsch has been reappointed as chair of the Word Road Association technical committee 3.3 on Asset Management for the cycle 2024-27 in representation of AASHTO and FHWA. Kathleen Hancock is leading Virginia Tech in its 13th year of a partnership with the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles Highway Safety Office locating crashes and providing technical expertise in understanding vehicle fatalities in Virginia.