UCF Professor Emeritus Receives Highest Civil Engineering Honor
Essam Radwan, a professor emeritus at the University of Central Florida, will be inducted Oct. 11 as a distinguished member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the highest honor a civil engineer can achieve.
Radwan is being recognized for his research contributions using simulation to improve traffic operations and for his leadership to enhance civil engineering education. He will be inducted with eight other engineers at the ASCE’s 2019 Convention in Miami.
“It is an honor to crown my academic career with an induction to the ASCE distinguished members, a group of civil engineers who made a substantial impact of the profession in their field of expertise,” says Radwan, who received his doctorate at Purdue University.
Radwan retired in 2017 but will finish working with his final doctoral student this fall.
The society says Radwan’s research is recognized worldwide for its incorporation of human factors into the assessment of highway safety.
He has served as prinicpal or co-principal investigator on more than 80 projects sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Florida Department of Transportation and other agencies.
During most of his 17 years at UCF, Radwan served as chair of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering, where he reformed the undergraduate curriculum, expanded the graduate program with innovative research, and mentored dozens of master’s and doctoral students.
He was the founding director of UCF’s Center for Advanced Transportation Systems Simulation, a multidisciplinary simulation lab of investigators working with UCF’s Institute for Simulation and Training. Radwan also led UCF’s effort to partner with the City of Orlando in the MetroLab Network, in which universities use academic research and resources to help cities improve their approaches to sustainability, economic development, community-building and public safety.
The society says that with Radwan’s vision and leadership, many emerging topics, such as automated and connected mobility and energy diversification, are being addressed successfully in practice, classrooms and pilot programs.
Radwan has written 260 technical papers and reports, and he has delivered numerous academic talks at international conferences and professional meetings.
Out of more than 150,000 current ASCE members, only about 220 have achieved the distinguished member honor.
“Each member has attained a level of excellence that sets the standard for their peers, paving the way for engineers of the future,” says Robin A. Kemper, president of ASCE.
Story by Gene Kruckemyer ’73, UCF Today