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Faculty Activities
CSU Faculty Member Named to Transportation Authority Steering Committee
CSU faculty member Richard Gutkowski was recently named to the North Front Range Regional Transportation Authority Citizens' Coalition Steering Committee.
The committee, made up of two dozen people from across the region, will meet for three months to develop a regional plan for roadway and transit projects. The plan will be considered as a ballot measure later this year. The group will explore issues of equity, shareback, tax rates, maintenance and regional transit and develop intergovernmental agreements between the region's jurisdictions.
The MPC and CSU were among the sponsors for the North Front Range Transportation Choices Summit last year. The transportation authority is building on the summit's initial work to establish priorities and find resources to address the region's transportation issues.
Visiting Professor from Sweden Cooperates in MPC Bridge Projects
Elzbieta Lukaszewska, research scientist in the Division of Timber Structures at Luleå University of Technology (LUT) in Sweden is working as a visiting scientist at Colorado State University. She is cooperating with Richard Gutkowski in various MPC research projects on composite wood-concrete layered bridge deck systems.
At LUT, Lukaszewska is also completing doctoral studies involving interconnections for prefabricating stiffened wood-concrete panels. She will be at CSU for six months, focusing on rigorous computer models. Prior to her arrival, she visited the University of Canterbury in New Zealand for five weeks, as part of Gutkowski's cooperation with researchers at that institution.
CSU Prof Honored for Work in Hungary
As part of the commemoration to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Richard Gutkowski was one of four individuals named as Honorary Lifetime Members of the Hungarian Club of Colorado.
Colorado Governor Bill Owens and Eugene Megyesy, Honorary Consul General of the Republic of Hungary, at an awards ceremony recognizing CSU faculty member Richard Gutkowski and three others as Honorary Lifetime Members of the Hungarian Club of Colorado.
Gutkowski received the honor in recognition for facilitating cooperation at the doctoral school level between the Department of Civil Engineering at Colorado State University and the Civil Engineering Department at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. Recipients were recognized during a memorial service at the Hungarian Park in Denver where a wreath was placed in honor of those lost in the revolution.
Colorado Governor Bill Owens keynoted the opening events at a ceremony held at the State Capitol Building. U.S. Congressman Tom Tancredo keynoted the later banquet ceremony.
Student Activities
Burgers Named Student of Year for Region VIII
Travis Burgers, former MPC student at Colorado State University, was named Student of the Year for Region VIII at the Transportation Research Board annual meeting in Washington in January. Each year, the U.S. Department of Transportation honors the most outstanding student from each participating University Transportation Center for achievements and promise for future contributions to the transportation field.
Students of the year are selected based on their accomplishments in such areas as technical merit and research, academic performance, professionalism, and leadership. Each student receives a certificate from DOT and $1,000 from the student's UTC.
Burgers earned his M.S., degree in civil engineering from CSU in August 2005, and a B.S. degree in engineering from Dordt College, Sioux Center, IA, in 2003. He is presently a doctoral student in biomechanics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Burgers held a dual appointment as a graduate teaching assistant and a graduate research assistant in the Department of Civil Engineering at CSU from 2003 to mid-2005. As a graduate teaching assistant, he was an instructor in various undergraduate laboratory-based courses. As a graduate research assistant he was supported via funds from the MPC. He worked on an innovative repair method for timber bridges adapted from an aerospace industry process termed "Z-spiking" used in making laminated composites. His study consisted of applying Z-spikes (fiberglass reinforced polymer rods) to damaged stringer members. He conducted extensive laboratory tests of a full-scale chord of an open-deck timber trestle railroad bridge that had been reinforced by Z-spiking. The work was also presented at the 2006 International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering held in Budapest, Hungary, and published in the proceedings.
In summer 2004, Burgers served as a mentor to a student in the McNair scholars program for underrepresented undergraduate students. He helped the student integrate research and education via overseeing his designing and conducting a summer research project in transportation-related research.
He was surveying assistant in highway work with Wilsey & Associates. He also was a test lab assistant for Behr Heat Transfer, conducting burst, pressure and wind tunnel tests on oil coolers and evaluating test outcomes.
Presently, Burgers is conducting research on press-fit fixation and visco-elastic response of a bone-implant interface. This technology will contribute to improved understanding and treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee by combining 3-D computational modeling and cadaveric mechanics testing of femurs surgically treated with implants. He hopes to apply such studies to other medical conditions, physical trauma, and bone injuries.
