Category: Research

Abdolmajid Erfani has received the Outstanding Reviewer Award from the ASCE Journal of Management in Engineering. The Journal of Management in Engineering has achieved the highest impact factor (IF = 7.4) among all the journals published by the American Society of Civil Engineers in recent years.

Abdolmajid (Mazi) Erfani is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering. His research interests include:

• Data-driven Infrastructure Management
• Project Delivery and Procurement
• Smart Construction
• Risk Management
• Equity and Diversity

Related

Mazi Erfani Earns 2024 Arthur M. Wellington Prize

ASCE 2024 Thomas Fitch Rowland Prize for Abdolmajid Erfani

ASCE 2023 Best Paper Award for Abdolmajid Erfani

Assistant Professor Mazi Erfani (CEGE) and his team have been selected by the ASCE Society Awards Committee to receive the esteemed 2024 Arthur M. Wellington Prize! Their paper, “Ex Post Project Risk Assessment: Method and Empirical Study,” published in the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management in December 2022, has been recognized for its exceptional contributions to the field of civil engineering.

This prestigious award, established in 1921, celebrates the legacy of Arthur M. Wellington and honors outstanding achievements in civil engineering research.

Join us in congratulating Erfani and his team for this well-deserved recognition!

From the Abstract

Project risk is an important part of managing large projects of any sort. This study contributes to the state of knowledge in project risk management by introducing a data-driven approach to measure risk identification performance using historical data.

Results from 11 major US transportation projects suggested that, on average, fewer than 65% of ex ante identified risks ultimately occurred in projects and were mitigated,while more than 35% did not occur and were retired.

A project team with positive doer behavior (i.e., actively monitoring and identifying risks during project execution) performed better in delivering projects on time and within budget.

“Ex Post Project Risk Assessment: Method and Empirical Study”
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 149, Issue 2, February 2023
https://doi.org/10.1061/JCEMD4.COENG-12588

Related

ASCE 2024 Thomas Fitch Rowland Prize for Abdolmajid Erfani

ASCE 2023 Best Paper Award for Abdolmajid Erfani

Associate Professor Daisuke Minakata (CEGE/GLRC) has been selected as one of the winners of the 2022 ES&T Reviewer Award!

This award acknowledges Minakata’s outstanding contributions in peer review for the American Chemical Society (ACS) journal Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T), showcasing his expertise, timeliness and dedication throughout the year.

Congratulations, Professor Minakata, on this well-deserved recognition!

Assistant Professor Ishi Keenum’s work at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was recently awarded a 2023 Gold Medal Award by the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) for the rapid development of a positive control reference material to ensure the validity of diagnostic testing for mpox, previously known as monkeypox.

The Gold Medal Award is the highest award given by the DOC. It honors “extraordinary, notable or prestigious contributions that impact the mission of the Department of Commerce and/or one operating unit, and which reflect favorably on the Department.”

By Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering.

Dr. Abdolmajid Erfani, assistant professor in Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering, in collaboration with Zihui Ma, Qingbin Cui, and Gregory B. Baecher, University of Maryland, has been selected by ASCE’s Construction Institute to receive the 2024 Thomas Fitch Rowland Prize for the paper “Ex Post Project Risk Assessment: Method and Empirical Study,” Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, December 2022.

The award, which consists of a plaque, will be presented during the Society’s CI & CRC Joint Conference in Des Moines, IA, March 20-23, 2024.

In the award of the prize, preference is given to papers whose author or authors describe in detail accomplished works of construction or which are valuable contributions to construction management and construction engineering.

Dr. Erfani’s research includes data-driven infrastructure management, project delivery and procurement, smart construction, and risk management.

From the Abstract

Project risk is an important part of managing large projects of any sort. This study contributes to the state of knowledge in project risk management by introducing a data-driven approach to measure risk identification performance using historical data. It investigated the quality of early risk registers and risk assessments on large transportation projects and compared them to how the identified risks evolved on historical projects. The investigation involved the use of textual analysis of archival risk register documents.

A project team with positive doer behavior (i.e., actively monitoring and identifying risks during project execution) performed better in delivering projects on time and within budget.

“Ex Post Project Risk Assessment: Method and Empirical Study”
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 149, Issue 2
https://doi.org/10.1061/JCEMD4.COENG-12588

Related

ASCE 2023 Best Paper Award for Abdolmajid Erfani

Zhanping You (CEGE) was pictured in the Iron Mountain Daily News alongside a story about the completion of road projects in 2023 in Dickinson County, with some roads resurfaced using a mix of recycled tire rubber and asphalt.

The Dickinson County Road Commission partnered with Michigan Tech and the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) for the C.R. 577 projects.

Projects used different methods, such as the use of recycled tire rubber in hot mix asphalt as well as engineered crumb rubber as a stabilizer or the use of recycled tire rubber and recycled glass as an aggregate.

You is a Distinguished Professor in Transportation Engineering. His research interests include

• Design, construction, and maintenance of pavements
• Micromechanics for road materials
• Discrete element modeling and finite element modeling techniques
• Construction materials: asphalt, aggregate, asphalt concrete

as well as alternative and recycled materials for civil engineering.

Read more at Iron Mountain Daily News.

Bo Xiao, assistant professor in Construction Management, was recognized by the ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management for his journal article entitled “Deep Learning Image Captioning in Construction Management: A Feasibility Study.”

From the Editor-in-Chief:

“The authors present their systematic approach to automating deep learning for image captioning in a construction management context. This article is compelling for several reasons. The topic is one that has the potential to provide substantial benefits for construction engineering and management. The authors have clearly explained an involved methodology that produced results that were validated by comparison of eight metrics. The conclusions are presented in a nuanced manner that includes the strong points and limitations of the methods studied and useful suggestions for future development. This paper was selected from a field of 187 technical papers, 25 case studies, 2 technical notes, and 18 state-of-the-art reviews that were published from July 2022 through June 2023 in the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management.”

Authors: Bo Xiao, Aff.M.ASCE https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0798-8018 eric.xiao@polyu.edu.hk, Yiheng Wang yiheng6@ualberta.ca, and Shih-Chung Kang sckang@ualberta.caAUTHOR AFFILIATIONS
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 148, Issue 7
https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0002297

Xiao’s research interests include construction informatics, AI applications in construction, and construction robotics.

Ishi Keenum (CEGE) was quoted by EurekAlert! in a story about the National Microbiome Data Collaborative (NMDC) Ambassador Program. Keenum is a member of the program’s 2023 cohort of early career scientists  with diverse research interests who will receive training in best practices for biological data standardization.

Keenum researches how genes that give microbes antibiotic resistance are shared in human-built systems like wastewater treatment streams.

In her research, Keenum turned to datasets available in the published literature, hoping to perform some meta-analyses. She was stymied by the use of different data repositories.

As an NMDC Ambassador, she is excited to help build the scientific culture of the future, where FAIR data is the norm.

Her research interests include developing and manipulating the microbiology of wastewater, water reuse, agricultural systems, developing comparable metagenomic measurements, and developing bioinformatic methods and analysis tools for environmental systems.

Read more at EurekAlert!, by DOE/LAWRENCE BERKELEY NATIONAL LABORATORY.

Dr. Abdolmajid Erfani, assistant professor in Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering, in collaboration with Dr. Hickey and Dr. Cui, University of Maryland, has been honored with the 2023 Best Paper Award for their article published in the ASCE Journal of Management in Engineering.

The Journal of Management in Engineering has achieved the highest impact factor among all the journals published by the American Society of Civil Engineers in recent years. The awarded article is titled “Use of LinkedIn Data and Machine Learning to Analyze Gender Differences in Construction Career Paths.” The study analyzed female representation in leadership roles within the top 400 engineering contractors.

Successful women leaders have more diverse career paths, working at 56% more companies, holding 19% more job titles, and being 73% more likely to have a graduate degree compared to men. However, as women’s perceived competence rises, their perceived likeability diminishes, according to language analysis on LinkedIn recommendations. These challenges are why many female engineering college graduates don’t pursue careers in the field. Although women earn about 22% of civil and environmental engineering degrees, they make up only 10.9% of the AEC workforce and 3.9% of engineering executives.

The award ceremony was held during the ASCE Annual Convention in Chicago, Illinois, on October 18–21, 2023.

“Use of LinkedIn Data and Machine Learning to Analyze Gender Differences in Construction Career Paths”
Paul J. Hickey, Abdolmajid Erfani, and Qingbin Cui, A.M.
Journal of Management in Engineering, Volume 38, Issue 6
https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)ME.1943-5479.0001087