Jesus M. de la Garza, the Vecellio Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech, will be honored with a Distinguished Professor award by the Construction Industry Institute (CII).
de la Garza is one of five construction-related educators from across the nation who will receive the award, based upon their efforts to incorporate research findings into college courses. The award will be presented July 30 at the CII's annual conference in Reno, Nev.
The CII also will honor Virginia Tech's Vecellio Construction Engineering and Management Program itself. It is one of two U.S. construction academic programs to win the CII's 2009 Curriculum Partners Award, honoring program efforts to incorporate research findings into the classroom.
de la Garza helps spearhead a course that brings industry professionals from such companies as Bechtel, Fluor, duPont, Procter & Gamble, and KBR to Virginia Tech's Blacksburg campus to educate students on the best practices being incorporated into the construction field. The course was started in the wake of the April, 16, 20O7, shootings with CII's board of directors wanting to help the Virginia Tech campus recover. The first year involved Virginia Tech only, but the course opened to other universities across the nation in 2008, with lecturers using TV distance-learning technology based in Blacksburg. Soon to start its third year, the course now will rotate among several universities, starting with the University of Texas.
de la Garza specializes in construction engineering and highway infrastructure management and is a member of the Virginia Tech's Myers-Lawson School of Construction (http://www.mlsoc.vt.edu). As director of CHAMPS (Center for Highway Asset Management ProgramS) he has led efforts to identify innovative ways to measure the effectiveness of the performance-based road maintenance contracts that the Virginia Department of Transportation awards. The evaluation for effectiveness focuses primarily on the physical level of service of the interstate.
He serves as member of the National Research Council's Board on Infrastructure and the Constructed Environment (http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/story.php?relyear=2008&itemno=166). He has also served as program director of the Information Technology and Infrastructure Systems program for the National Science Foundation's Civil and Mechanical Systems Division, and as co-chairman of the academic committee of the CII. He earned his bachelor's of science in civil engineering from Tecnologico de Monterrey in 1978, and his master's and Ph.D. degrees in civil engineering from University of Illinois in 1984 and 1988, respectively.
Virginia Tech's College of Engineering (http://www.eng.vt.edu/main/index.php) is internationally recognized for its excellence in 14 engineering disciplines and computer science. The college's 5,700 undergraduates benefit from an innovative curriculum that provides a hands-on, minds-on approach to engineering education, complementing classroom instruction with two unique design-and-build facilities and a strong Cooperative Education Program. With more than 50 research centers and numerous laboratories, the college offers its 1,900 graduate students opportunities in advanced fields of study, including biomedical engineering, state-of-the-art microelectronics, and nanotechnology.
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