ASCE has honored Halil Ceylan, Ph.D., A.M.ASCE, with the 2021 James Laurie Prize for significantly advancing transportation engineering with his career contributions in smart, sustainable, and resilient transportation infrastructure systems.
Ceylan has demonstrated noteworthy achievements in civil, transportation, and pavement engineering. His expertise can be categorized into five main areas:
1. Intelligent, sustainable, and resilient transportation infrastructure systems.
2. Advanced nondestructive testing, evaluation, and health monitoring for achieving sustainable and resilient transportation infrastructure systems.
3. Development and advancement of mechanistic-based pavement analysis, design, and performance prediction tools.
4. Sustainable infrastructure materials and advanced material characterization.
5. Innovative airfield pavement engineering solutions.
His groundbreaking research was used for a national, top-priority project by a selected group of researchers working on the development of the new mechanistic-based American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Pavement Design (NCHRP1-37A). He established the Program for Sustainable Pavement Engineering & Research (PROSPER) at Iowa State’s Institute for Transportation (InTrans) and has served as the ISU Site Director for Partnership to Enhance General Aviation Safety, Accessibility and Sustainability (PEGASAS): Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Center of Excellence for General Aviation.
Ceylan has also been commemorated for his work in artificial intelligence in pavement engineering. He introduced the use of artificial neural networks for predicting the dynamic modulus of asphalt pavements; this prompted the use of AI in pavement in engineering. He pioneered his work in this area 20 years ago.
The James Laurie Prize recognizes contributions to the advancement of transportation engineering in research, planning, design, or construction.
