SIUE Civil Engineering Ph.D. student Jiguang Zhao has won First Place in the Missouri Valley Section-Institute of Transportation Engineers (MOVITE) 2009/2010 student paper competition (Thomas J. Seburn Award). The title of the winning paper is "Safety Issues of Left Side Off-Ramps on Freeways". Mr. Zhao's advisor is Dr. Huaguo Zhou, Assistant Professor in the Civil Engineering department. The award will be presented to Mr. Zhao at the 2009 Fall MOVITE meeting to be held September 2009 in Springfield, Missouri.
| The Fall 2008 Civil Engineering Senior Design Environmental Student Team at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) took first place honors in the Parsons Brinckerhoff Environmental and Water Resources Institute Student Design Competition held in conjunction with the 2009 ASCE EWRI World Water and Environmental Congress May 17-21, 2009 Kansas City, Missouri. The team had been previously selected from national entries to compete as finalists in the Congress. The presenters at the conference included Stephen Linenfelser, Troy Turner, and Trisha Youngquist (team leader). Other members of the SIUE design group included Sara Andert, Amanda Dioneda, Dustin Hill, and Adam Rhein. Faculty sponsors of the team are Profs. Jianpeng (Jim) Zhou and Brad Cross. The SIUE environmental group project detailed the environmental aspects of an upgrade to the SIUE Heating and Refrigeration Plant. Items related to indoor air quality, drinking water quality, hazardous materials, environmental hazards, and noise levels were included in an environmental quality review. Recommendations were made based on the building's current usage as a maintenance facility as well as potential future uses for engineering lab space. |  |
The SIUE ASCE Student Chapter teams once again competed very successfully at the 2009 Mid-Continent Conference held at SIUC in Carbondale, Illinois. The Concrete Canoe team earned First Place Overall so they are eligible to compete at the 2009 National Concrete Canoe Competition at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The Steel Bridge team earned Third Place Overall so they too are eligible to compete at their corresponding national event which is the 2009 ASCE/AISC National Student Steel Bridge Competition to be held at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas in Las Vegas. While both teams have each made it to at least one national competition before, this is the first time that the two SIUE ASCE student chapter teams have earned their place at the national competitions in the same year.
Concrete Canoe
Team Captain: Ryan Zwijack
Team Members: Laura Niemeyer, Don Seitz, Jennifer Titchenal, Trisha Youngquist, Brian Schuh, Blake Wilson, Jessica Huxman, Jessica Schuerman, Kenny Basset, Alex Benz, Logan Poppe, Frank Sharpe
First Place - Overall Performance, Final Product, Men’s Sprints, Women’s Sprints, Coed Sprints, Women’s Endurance
Second Place – Oral Presentation
Third Place – Men’s Endurance, Design Paper
(11 teams)
Steel Bridge
Team Captains: Joey Heger, Jeff Shepherd, Bryce Whitworth
Team Members: Josh Allen, Jon Brent, Kyle Friederich, Jason Mewes, Andy Mueller, Nate Clary, John Matzke, Tyler Whitney, Kyle Arentsen
Second Place – Lightness, Stiffness, Efficiency
Third Place – Overall, Construction Speed, Display, Economy
(11 teams)
On February 17 SIUE’s Early Childhood Center’s Blue Room visited us, so the labs were full of boisterous preschoolers getting wet and dirty while learning a few basic engineering concepts. Susan Morgan, Brent Vaughn, and Trisha Youngquist (CE graduate student) introduced the kids to water flow, erosion, soil size, and plasticity. Please see photos of the preschoolers' visit below.
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A faculty member and three students in the Civil Engineering program received awards at the School of Engineering 2009 Annual Awards Banquet. The awardees are:
Please join us in congratulating these winners.
On August 16, two new faculty members, Drs. Ryan Fries and Huaguo Zhou, joined the Civil Engineering Department of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville as assistant professors. They both specialize in Transportation Engineering. This addition will not only enhance the University’s ability in teaching and researching in the ever- growing transportation field, but will also help to fulfill the transportation development needs of the St. Louis metropolitan area. Brief descriptions of their professional experience are listed below:
 | Dr. Ryan Fries will join SIUE’s civil engineering department this fall starting as an assistant professor. His area of focus is transportation engineering, specifically intelligent transportation systems. Ryan has recently moved from Clemson University in South Carolina, where he completed a position as an adjunct faculty member and post doctoral researcher. Clemson University is also where Ryan earned his doctorate and masters degrees. He recently passed his P.E. exam last spring and is looking forward to the publication of his first book this November titled Transportation Infrastructure Security Utilizing Intelligent Transportation Systems. |
 | Dr. Huaguo Zhou joined SIUE as an assistant professor in transportation engineering with the Department of Civil Engineering this fall. He holds a Ph.D. degree in transportation engineering from the University of South Florida and a bachelor’s and a Ph.D. degree in railway engineering from Beijing Jiaotong University. Before joining SIUE, he worked as a senior research associate at the Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR) at the University of South Florida. He has published 14 peer reviewed journal papers and over 30 conference papers, and conducted research on many transportation projects including traffic operations, highway and transit safety, computer simulation, access management, and incident management. He recently received the distinguished cash award of 2008 Florida Davis Productivity Awards. |