SYNOPSIS

Traditionally, transportation planning, highway design, traffic management and related duties are the responsibilities of transportation engineers who are trained with civil engineering background. Since the introduction of Intelligent Transportation Systems 30 years ago, and more recently smart cities, connected and automated vehicles, highway electrification, etc., transportation engineers must work with electrical & electronics engineers, mechanical engineers,systems engineers, computer scientists, etc. to deliver projects. The ability to work in teams and knowledge about the complementary disciplines are essential to the career development of transportation engineers. However, most of the civil engineering education curriculum have not responded fast enough to the market needs. In this webinar, the speaker will first present the civil/transportation engineering education system in U.S. universities and the professional certification process. He will then relate from his own teaching and research experiences, the challenges faced by practicing civil/transportation engineers, and researchers. During the presentation, he will also introduce the latest opportunities in the civil/transportation industry and emerging research topics in the U.S. He will also share his current education and research initiatives to train students/engineers to have interdisciplinary and global outlook, as part of the strategies to overcome these challenges.


BIODATA OF SPEAKER

Dr. Cheu Ruey Long is a Professor in the Dept. of Civil Engineering at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). He was born in Johor Bahru, earned his B.Eng. and M.Eng. degrees from The National University of Singapore, and Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Irvine. He is a Professional Engineer in Texas, USA, a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He has published more than 90 journal articles on the topics of intelligent transportation systems, smart cities, traffic engineering, transportation planning,transportation safety and security, etc. He is ranked by Google Scholar as one of the top 20 researchers in Transportation Engineering, and by Elsevier among the top 2% of the researchers in the transportation field. Dr. Cheu’s education expertise includes creating and directing interdisciplinary and international faculty-led study abroad programs and dual master programs. He has supervised and graduated 11 Ph.D. students and 44 master students.