Al-Qadi to Serve as ASCE T&DI President

Imad Al-Qadi, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the Illinois Center for Transportation (ICT), was recently named the next president of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Transportation and Development Institute (T&DI).

In his new role, he plans to enhance the interaction between T&DI and academia, industry, and other transportation stakeholders and to continue the focus on growing T&DI’s Younger Members Group. He believes that younger members greatly benefit professionally from involvement with T&DI, but they also benefit T&DI itself by contributing fresh and innovative perspectives.

Al-Qadi is also looking forward to helping T&DI work with other transportation organizations to advance knowledge about critical issues related to transportation technologies such as autonomous mobility, wireless sensing, sustainability, renewable energy, and global transportation economy and freight systems. He wants to see the biannual T&DI Congress become an important venue for the transportation profession; the Second T&DI Congress will be held in Orlando, Florida, June 8-11, 2014.

The American Society of Civil Engineers established the Transportation and Development Institute in 2002. T&DI incorporates the former ASCE Air Transport Division, Highway Division, Urban Planning and Development Division, Urban Transportation Division, and the Automated People Movers Standards Committee. T&DI offers the opportunity to network with other professionals, sharpen skills, foster professional growth, and shape the future of transportation and development by participating in technical activities, conferences, and development of internationally recognized standards. In addition to the more than 13,000 ASCE members who chose transportation or development as their primary technical affiliation, T&DI membership is open to anyone with an interest in transportation or development.

ICT is an innovative partnership between the Illinois Department of Transportation and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. ICT is part of the College of Engineering and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. As director of ICT, Al-Qadi oversees operations for the center, which has become one of the largest centers at the University of Illinois and one of the leading national and international transportation centers. ICT facilitates the development and timely implementation of cost-effective technologies that improve transportation system durability, safety, and reliability; reduce congestion and environmental impact; optimize utilization of the state’s transportation infrastructure; and maximize the return on investment of taxpayer dollars.