Technology & Innovation Archives - Page 17 of 18

Center for Education and Research in Construction

The Center for Education and Research in Construction (CERC) is a locus of research, scholarship and discovery in the University of Washington’s Department of Construction Management and allied disciplines of architecture, engineering and real estate. Focused on the people and practices of a dynamic, innovative construction industry, CERC develops new concepts and innovative solutions as well as improves methodologies for design, construction and operations.

With labs focused on Safety and Health, Project Delivery and Management, Virtual Design and Construction, Infrastructure Development, and Sustainable Built Environments, the CERC faculty are not only experts and researchers in a wide array of topics, but also lead the field in translating that expertise into excellent construction education practices and pedagogy to train tomorrow’s construction professionals.

CERC develops and delivers continuing education for professionals within the built environment disciplines. Examples of past and ongoing partnerships include those with Skanska and the National Electrical Contractors Association. In addition, the Center supports the Department of Construction Management (CM) by hosting meetings of the program’s advisory council (CIAC), graduate and undergraduate classes, and teaching laboratories.

With generous support from the local construction industry, the Department of Construction Management took on an ambitious project to develop a research and education center at the old naval base at Sand Point located in Magnuson Park, Seattle, WA near the University of Washington’s main campus. The facility features more than 25,000 square feet of space on two levels, providing a home for the Center for Education and Research in Construction.

Labs associated with CERC include:

PDM Lab
LCR Lab
ESC Lab
CTOP Lab
SHARE Lab

CTOP Lab supports the Internet of Things (IoT) project, studying devices which are increasingly a standard component of buildings. As these sensors are connected to the internet and networked to building technology (such as heating and lights), they introduce potential security vulnerabilities. Although technical solutions exist to counter security issues, implementation of these solutions are often impeded by the challenges that an organization’s Information Technology (IT) staff and a building’s Operations and Maintenance (O&M) staff have when they work closely together and share their knowledge about computer security and how buildings operate. These difficulties arise from different ways of working and different points of view about how technology works. These challenges, in combination with a policy environment that rarely regulates IoT devices, increases risk, leaving buildings vulnerable to attack.

This project will address these challenges by studying two critical areas: (1) how O&M and IT groups currently share their knowledge and skills in order to improve IoT security and (2) how public policies and an organization’s own rules regarding privacy and security impact how IT and O&M collaborate. The results of this study will generate knowledge around how IT and O&M professionals can work more effectively together to improve the security of our nation’s buildings and offer insights into how public policy may affect professional cybersecurity collaboration to manage IoT risk.

This project is a joint venture of the Communication, Technology, and Organizational Practices (CTOP) Lab as well as the Cyber-BE lab.

Tomás Méndez Echenagucia

Tomás Méndez Echenagucia is an Associate Professor at the University of Washington’s department of Architecture. His research is focused on the use of simulation, computational geometry and optimization algorithms to make building components more sustainable. He holds a double degree in Architecture from the Universidad Central de Venezuela and the Politecnico di Torino, as well as a PhD in Architecture and Building Design also from the Politecnico di Torino. He has practiced as an architect and consultant in Europe and South America. His work includes several research pavilions and prototypes, including the “Armadillo Vault” for the Venice Biennale in 2016 and the ETH Pavilion in New York City in 2015. He completed a five year postdoctoral researcher position at the Block Research Group in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zürich, where he was a project lead in the HiLo research unit. Tomás is a co-developer of the COMPAS framework, an ecosystem of modeling, design and simulation tools, ranging from Finite Element Analysis to geometric acoustics.

New UW Data Collaborative connects BE researchers with restricted data

The University of Washington Data Collaborative (UWDC) is now offering services to researchers across campus, including BE researchers Gregg Colburn at the Runstad Department of Real Estate and the Urban Form Lab. Housed at the Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology, UWDC provides infrastructure to access restricted data in a secure and sophisticated computing environment. Data sets available to researchers cover health records, polling data, business and consumer data, and real estate data. Researchers interested in accessing these data…

Podcast: Leveraging the Life Cycle Assessment for Useful Carbon Accounting

Kate Simonen joins the NORI podcast to share the ins and outs of life cycle assessments, or LCAs. Kate Simonen is a carbon accounting expert and professor in the Department of Architecture at the University of Washington. As a licensed architect and structural engineer, she has an extensive background in high-performance building systems, seismic design and retrofitting, and net-zero energy construction. Kate’s research is focused on environmental life cycle assessment and innovative construction materials and methods. She is also the founding…

Renée Cheng

Renée Cheng joined the College of Built Environments as dean on January 1, 2019. Dean Cheng comes from the University of Minnesota where she was a professor, associate dean of research, head of the school of architecture, and directed an innovative graduate program linking research with practice and licensure. Prior to UMN, she taught at the University of Michigan and the University of Arizona. She is a graduate of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and Harvard College.

A licensed architect, her professional experience includes work for Pei, Cobb, Freed and Partners and Richard Meier and Partners before founding Cheng-Olson Design. Dean Cheng has been honored twice as one of the top 25 most admired design educators in the United States by DesignIntelligence. She has received numerous honors and awards including the 2017 Lean Construction Institute Faculty Award and was named to the American Institute of Architecture’s College of Fellows in 2017.

Cheng is a leader in the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and advocates for equity in the field of architecture and in the practices related to the built environment. Recently, Cheng led the research effort for the AIA guides for equitable practice in the workplace. Cheng has pioneered research surrounding the intersection of design and emerging technologies, including work on industry adoption of Integrated Project Delivery, Building Information Modeling and Lean.

Giovanni Migliaccio

Associate Professor Giovanni C. Migliaccio holds a P. D. Koon Endowed Professorship in Construction Management and is the Executive Director of the Center for Education and Research in Construction (CERC) at the University of Washington, Seattle. He joined the CM department in August 2010. Previously, he was a faculty member with the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque. He holds a M.S. and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and a master-level degree from Politecnico di Bari in Italy. Prior to moving to the U.S., he worked in Italy in the construction management of telecommunication projects under Nortel Networks, Nokia Networks, and IPSE 2000. At UW, Giovanni is active in all three pillars of academic life, including service to the university and the industry, teaching, and research.

At UW, Giovanni has served in the CM Graduate and Undergraduate Admissions and Curriculum Committees, the Construction Industry Advisory Council (CIAC), the CERC Steering Committee, the CBE PhD Steering Committee, the CBE Interdisciplinary Group for Real Estate, and the UW Faculty Council on University Facilities and Services (FCUFS). Outside UW, he is active in various industry organizations, including the Transportation Research Board (TRB), the Construction Industry Institute (CII), and the Construction Industry Training Council of Washington (CITCWA). He is also a member of the editorial board of the ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, and the Project Delivery Methods and Native American Transportation Issues committees at TRB. Dr. Migliaccio has served as consultant to domestic and international organizations or universities, including the World Bank, the Secretariat of the Research Grants Council (RGC) of Hong Kong, and the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR).

Giovanni has an established and diverse research portfolio. His areas of specialization and research include: (1) Innovative procurement, contracting, subcontracting and delivery practices for construction projects; (2) Sustainable management of construction workforce with focus on ergonomics, human performance, and physiological demand of construction work; (3) Sustainable management of the built environment; (4) Project management; (5) Innovative construction engineering and management education. His scholarly work is based on a combination of methods, including qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis. The second line of research is pursued jointly with Dr. Ken-Yu Lin through activities at the SHARE Lab.

SHARE Lab : Dr. Migliaccio co-directs with Dr. Lin the Laboratory for Safety and Health Advancement through Research and Education (SHARE) in Construction Management, which is physically hosted at the UW Center for Education and Research in Construction (CERC). The mission of the lab is to promote construction safety and health through evidenced-based innovative research, education, and practices. In particular, the SHARE lab specializes in creating new knowledge, learning resources, and practical solutions using technology interventions such as wearable sensors, visualization, serious gaming and tablet computers. Research work is supported by domestic stakeholders as well as national institutions and global corporations.

Hyun Woo “Chris” Lee

Hyun Woo “Chris” Lee is a PD Koon Endowed Associate Professor in the Department of Construction Management (CM). Prior to joining the CM Department in January 2016, he spent 3.5 years as an Assistant Professor at Oregon State University, and 7 years in the U.S. and Korean construction industries as field engineer, project engineer, and estimator. He received his B.S. in Architectural Engineering from Seoul National University in 1999, and his M.S. and PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2004 and 2012, respectively.

Prof. Lee’s research interests center on developing models to identify, quantify, and mitigate various risk factors inherent in the development of energy-efficient commercial buildings and sustainable infrastructures. His research is currently focused on 3 types of risk factors: (1) financial risks associated with sustainability and energy-efficiency investments, (2) worker safety risks associated with sustainable design features, and (3) design-related risks due to project complexity.

Since 2012, Prof. Lee has led or been involved in 20 research projects (a combined value of over $1.5M), funded by various organizations including Washington State, Google, the US Department of Energy (DOE), the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Currently, he has 5 on-going projects with a combined value of over $400,000.

As of October 2020, Prof. Lee has published 33 peer-reviewed journal papers in top-quality journals such as Applied Energy, Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, Automation in Construction, and Journal of Construction Engineering and Management. In addition, he has co-authored 24 peer-reviewed conference papers and 14 technical reports.

Jan Whittington

Dr. Jan Whittington is Associate Professor of the Department of Urban Design and Planning, at the University of Washington, Seattle. Her research applies transaction cost economic theory to networked infrastructures, such as transportation, water, and communications systems, to internalize factors historically treated as external to transactions. Her publications include methodologies for greenhouse gas mitigation and resilience through capital investment planning, examination of the efficiency of public-private contractual arrangements for infrastructure, and the evaluation of online transactions for efficiency, security, and privacy. At the University of Washington, she is the Director of the Urban Infrastructure Lab, Associate Director of the Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity, and Affiliate Faculty at the Tech Policy Lab. She teaches infrastructure planning and finance, public finance, infrastructure mega-projects, science for environmental policy, planning for water, and land use planning. Her PhD (2008) is in City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley, where she was advised by economic Nobel laureate Oliver Williamson. Prior to her academic career, she spent 10 years with infrastructure giant Bechtel Corporation, as a strategic planner and environmental scientist. She holds bachelor degrees in Biology and Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz (1987). Her master’s degree is in City and Regional Planning, from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (1993).

Qing Shen

Qing Shen is Professor of Urban Design and Planning and Chair and Director of the University of Washington Graduate School’s Interdisciplinary PhD Program in Urban Design and Planning. He holds a PhD in City and Regional Planning from University of California, Berkeley. Professor Shen’s primary areas of interest are urban economics and metropolitan transportation planning and policy. Author of numerous scholarly publications, he has developed methodological frameworks for analyzing urban spatial structure, examined the social and environmental consequences of automobile-oriented metropolitan development, and investigated the differential impacts of information and communication technologies (ICT) on various population groups. A primary focus of his current research is on the opportunities and challenges created by mobile ICT-enabled new mobility services. Exploring the paths toward more efficient, equitable, and environmentally responsible urban transportation, he is working with colleagues and graduate students to conduct innovative research on travel behavior and its connections with shared mobility services, built environments, and transportation demand management policies.

Professor Shen’s scholarly work has gained wide recognitions, which include a Horwood Critique Prize given by the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA), an Emerging Scholar Paper Award in spatial analysis and modeling specialty given by the Association of American Geographers (AAG), a Chester Rapkin Award given by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP), and a Best Paper Award by the World Society for Transportation and Land Use Research (WSTLUR). A highly active member of the academic community, he has served on the editorial boards of seven academic journals, including the Journal of the American Planning Association (since 2000; Associate Editor since 2020) and the Journal of Planning Education and Research (since 2006).

Professor Shen was educated in China (Zhejiang University) and Canada (University of British Columbia) before coming to the United States. He started his academic career at MIT as an assistant professor in 1993 and was promoted to associate professor in 1999. That was followed by his tenured faculty appointment in 2000 at the University of Maryland, College Park where he also served as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of the School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. He joined the University of Washington as Professor and Department Chair in 2009. In addition, he has served as a visiting professor at several leading universities in China. In 2005, he was appointed by the President of Nanjing University as the first holder of Siyuan Chair Professorship, an endowed visiting position. In 2009, he was appointed as a visiting Tongji Chair Professor at Tongji University. In 2014, he was appointed by the President of Southwest Jiaotong University as the Oversea Dean of the School of Architecture and Design, a visiting advisory position. He was a primary founder and former Chairman of the International Association for China Planning (IACP).

Marina Alberti

Marina Alberti is Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning in the Department of Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington. She is Director of the Urban Ecology Research Lab and PI of the NSF Funded Research Collaboration Networks on Urban Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics. She teaches courses in Urban Science, Urban Ecology, Environmental Planning, Research Design, Geographic Information Systems, and Group Dynamic and Conflict resolution. Alberti’s research interests are in urban ecology and evolution. Her studies focus on the interactions between urban patterns and ecosystem function, urban signatures of evolutionary change, and the properties of cities that enhance their resilience and transformative capacity. She also leads research on urban ecological modeling, scenario planning, and urban ecological metrics to monitor progress and inform policy-making and planning. In her book Cities That Think like Planets (UW Press 2016), Alberti advances a science of cities that work on a planetary scale and link unpredictable dynamics to the potential for socio-ecological innovation.