Transportation Engineering

  • Professor, Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering
  • Associate Chair for Research, Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering

Links of Interest

Teaching Interests

  • Matrix structural analysis
  • Finite element analysis
  • Concrete Materials
  • Pavement design
  • Timber design

Research Interests

  • Low-carbon cementitious materials; SCM; LCA and EPD; durability performance
  • Design and performance of concrete pavement and structures
  • Mechanics-based computation; Data-driven performance evaluation
  • NDE techniques (acoustic, ultrasonic and eddy current systems)
  • Structure resilience subjected to extreme weather conditions
  • Active-material actuator design, wind-structure interaction, vibration reduction
  • Assistant Professor, Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering

Research Interests

  • Data-driven Infrastructure Management
  • Project Delivery and Procurement
  • Smart Construction
  • Risk Management
  • Equity and Diversity
  • Text Analytics and Natural Language Processing
  • Artificial Intelligence Modeling
  • Associate Dean for Research
  • Professor, Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering
  • Director, Rail Transportation Program, Michigan Tech Transportation Institute

Research Interests

  • Rail and highway transportation / engineering
  • Highway-rail grade crossing and trespasser safety
  • Multimodal transportation; planning, policy, supply chain logistics and economics
  • Sustainability of transportation and life cycle/life cycle cost analysis
  • Railway capacity analysis and modeling
  • Curriculum and engineering education development
  • Industry/university collaboration
  • Associate Professor, Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering
  • Associate Chair for Curriculum, Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering
  • Affiliated Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Research Interests

  • Application computationally efficient and robust embedded algorithms for monitoring and protection of civil infrastructure assets such as buildings, bridges, pipelines, wind turbines, roadways, and railroads.
  • Assistant Professor, Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering

Research Interests

  • Pressure sensing
  • Non-destructive testing
  • Noninvasive characterization of construction materials and biological tissues
  • Visual sensing and Deep learning algorithms
  • Ultrasound and microbubble cavitation
  • Distinguished Professor, Transportation Engineering

Teaching Interests

  • Road design and analysis
  • Civil engineering materials
  • Sustainable pavement engineering
  • Advanced asphalt materials
  • Pavement mechanics

Research Interests

  • Design, construction, and maintenance of pavements

  • Micromechanics for road materials

  • Discrete element modeling and finite element modeling techniques
  • Construction materials: asphalt, aggregate, asphalt concrete

  • Alternative materials for civil engineering

  • Recycled materials for civil engineering
  • Associate Professor, Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering
  • Affiliated Associate Professor, Computer Science

Links of Interest

Teaching Interests

  • Transportation Network Analysis
  • Traffic Flow Theory
  • Travel Demand Analysis
  • Transportation Systems Operations and Control
  • Transportation Planning
  • Traffic Engineering
  • Optimization Methods
  • Deep Reinforcement Learning and Model Predictive Control for Connected and Automated Vehicles

Research Interests

  • Data-driven distributionally robust optimization (DRO) based control models for connected and automated vehicles (CAVs)
  • Big traffic data analytics using machine learning
  • Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) and Graph Neural Networks (GNN) for transportation applications
  • Mobile and crowd sensing of dynamic traffic systems (e.g., Drone traffic monitoring, social media data for travel pattern analysis using Twitter and Foursquare smartphone apps)
  • Dynamic network equilibrium and optimization
  • Modeling and simulation of large-scale complex systems (e.g. Traffic Simulation)
  • Freight logistics and supply chain systems (e.g., Intermodal Freight Modeling)
  • Impact of plug-in electric vehicles to smart grid and transportation network systems
  • Interdependency and resiliency of large-scale networked infrastructure systems
  • Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs)
  • Smart Cities
  • Cyber-Physical Systems
“Michigan Technological University has received $1.2 million from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to develop a practical tool that will help shipping, rail and trucking companies develop cohesive logistics for both predictive planning and real-time decisions that save time, energy and money. Led by Kuilin Zhang, an associate professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering, the Michigan Tech project is titled “A Decarbonized and Resilient Intermodal Freight Transportation (DRIFT) Modeling Platform for Intermodal Logistical Decisions Under Uncertainty.” DRIFT will model a low-carbon, intermodal freight transportation system of the future. It’s one of six projects nationwide funded by the DOE through an Advanced Research Project Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) exploratory topic called INcreasing Transportation Efficiency and Resiliency through MODeling Assets and Logistics (INTERMODAL). Michigan Tech’s project is the only one in the state of Michigan.”Kimberly Geiger