What are you doing now and how has your career been so far?

As As Vice President and Director of Transportation Innovation at HNTB Corporation (Columbus, Ohio), my current specialty is advanced mobility and sustainable energy solutions. For example, HNTB is working with 15 states to implement the federal National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, and my team is leading this work.

Special features: Civil Engineering & Artificial Intelligence

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We also developed and support the implementation of the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s Advanced Transportation Mobility strategic plan, which aims to improve quality of life and create economic opportunities through ground and air transportation. Recommendations include different types and functions of mobility hubs that use new technologies to connect underserved people and places more efficiently. The best part of being a civil engineer and working on projects like this is seeing how your designs advance society.

What do you think about the reintroduction of civil engineering?

Looking back, I can say that the Union professors did an excellent job of preparing me for professional life. From mandatory public speaking classes (important in public meetings!) to practical transportation exercises (setting up traffic counters, conducting ball bench tests). From instruction for the concrete canoe competition (Professor Ashraf Ghaly) to construction site visits to understand management activities (Professor LaPlante) to visits to drinking water, wastewater and hydroelectric plants in Sao Paulo, Brazil (Professor Phillip Snow).

I hope that Union’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering produces graduates with the curiosity, work ethic, and critical thinking skills needed to lead the United States and the world into a clean energy future. Their skills are needed now more than ever.

Civil engineering has many interfaces with other fields, including artificial intelligence. How do you use AI in your job?

HNTB’s customers are primarily government agencies. With the increasing number of natural disasters, infrastructure resilience is more important than ever. Our digital infrastructure solutions team is working on artificial intelligence-based decision support systems that help predict the impact and likelihood of disruptions to the transportation network (bridges, culverts, roads, retaining walls, utilities and ancillary structures), enabling more organized and coordinated multi-agency response plans.

Artificial intelligence is everywhere these days. What makes this technology so useful in so many areas?

Machine learning and AI have been used for years. They are another tool to enable technology to serve us, not the other way around. Unlike previous technology-related productivity gains, AI is expected to primarily benefit office jobs. A recent study found that AI leads to 40% productivity gains when skills are matched to the task, and 20% productivity gains when used outside of their area of ​​expertise. For fun, I used AI to find an answer specifically for civil engineering.

• AI-powered software can optimize traffic flow, reduce congestion, and generate and evaluate design options quickly and efficiently.

• AI-controlled robots can take over dangerous or repetitive tasks on construction sites, improving safety and efficiency.

• AI-powered sensors can monitor the health of infrastructure and detect potential problems early. This can help avoid costly repairs and extend the life of infrastructure.

AI brings real benefits, but also risks. It offers a huge opportunity to increase human intelligence and potential. That is why we must advocate and fight for the positive use of AI.