He is currently the primary investigator or co-investigator on four different research projects that reach into security, environmental and infrastructure issues. With one of the largest research groups in the Department of Civil Engineering, he oversees eight master’s students, two Ph.D. students and four undergraduate students engaged in research. He is also teaching two courses this spring.

So it’s not surprising that when asked what non-engineering activities he enjoys for recreation, he simply laughs.

A self-described “infrastructure guy,” Dr. Bryson’s big-picture focus is on designing resilient infrastructure that can withstand severe loading events. Currently, his research is taking him to the very ground itself as he addresses soil behavior.

“There are different loading conditions that the soil experiences,” Dr. Bryson explains. “I’m trying to simulate how soil would respond to various loading conditions out in the field. If the soil is saturated, non-saturated or compacted, it will make a difference as to how it behaves.”

Complementary to Dr. Bryson’s geotechnical work on soil behavior is a project he, Drs. Michael Kalinski, Kamyar Mahboub, Lindell Ormsbee, and Braden Lusk (from the Department of Mining Engineering) are undertaking for the National Institute for Hometown Security. The $2.72 million contract is funding research into how to best protect against waterside terrorist attacks on dams. “We are assessing what commercially available technologies are out there that will detect, track and deter a possible waterside attack without using lethal means. We’re combing the world for these technologies and are in our last year of the three-year project,” he shares.

Having desired to be a builder since high school, Dr. Bryson obtained a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Florida A&M University, focusing on structural engineering. However, his first job upon graduation—with the Florida Department of Transportation—made him realize structural engineering didn’t offer what he really wanted to do. “When you drive over bridges and see large buildings, you naturally attribute those civil engineering accomplishments to structural engineers,” he says. “But I wasn’t getting to think on my feet about design and construction. I wasn’t getting to do the real engineering like I thought I would. I asked another structural engineer, ‘Who does the real design work for these projects?’ He replied, “the geotechnical engineers do all that.’ So I went back to school and started studying geotechnical engineering for my master’s and Ph.D. degrees.”

After earning his master’s degree from Howard University in Washington D.C., Dr. Bryson began working for CH2M Hill, where he, in his words, “got to be the complete, A-Z engineer.” “Clients would ask me to meet them at a farmer’s field or a swamp, and I would show up with a notepad and questions about what the developer envisioned. Then, I would put together the entire design team. I really enjoyed it, because it was what I thought I would be doing when I joined the Florida DOT.”

Six years after starting at CH2M Hill, Dr. Bryson began thinking about getting a Ph.D. Northwestern University allowed him to ease into coursework without dropping everything and moving to Evanston, IL. Upon receiving his Ph.D. in 2002, Dr. Bryson was hired at Ohio University. In 2006, he joined the faculty at UK’s College of Engineering.

While he is responsible for several projects, Dr. Bryson points to the influence he has upon students’ lives as one of the greatest payoffs of teaching. “I prefer the mentoring role more than the teaching role,” he says. “Sometimes students will come in with technical questions, and sometimes they’ll have completely non-engineering related questions and we’ll talk about life. I love helping students get involved in research and listening to their theories and approaches. In the end, I’m still a geek and I love making discoveries.”

Dr. Nikiforos (Nick) Stamatiadis has trekked nearly all over the world. This past summer he hiked in the Andes in Argentina, achieving a personal goal of climbing the highest peak in South America. But when he’s not enjoying breathtaking scenery on various continents, Dr. Stamatiadis is focused on two things: safe highway design and preparing future civil engineers to become industry professionals.

Growing up in Greece, Dr. Stamatiadis was fascinated by public transportation. The ability to accommodate large groups of people within a networked infrastructure drew him to study transportation engineering. During his undergraduate studies in Greece, he helped develop efficient bus routes and systems. However, because his university did not offer graduate studies in his field, Dr. Stamatiadis came to the United States and began studies at Michigan State. He quickly discovered that, broadly speaking, the U.S. doesn’t rely on public transportation. As a result, he shifted his attention to other aspects of transportation engineering, such as driver licensing, driver education and highway safety.

The last ten years of Dr. Stamatiadis’s research has centered on safe highway design. He says the biggest question for him is, “How do I design something that is going to be safe? Every project has competing features, whether environmental, societal, economic, etc. You try to balance everyone’s need. But if, at the end of the day, I design a safe highway that serves the needs of the community, accommodates mobility concerns and is conscientious of our impact upon the environment, I find that time spent very rewarding.” Dr. Stamatiadis’s work has earned him four National Cooperative Highway Research Program awards pertaining to safety issues in highway design.

While Dr. Stamatiadis appreciates the research autonomy and flexibility that comes with university research, he relishes his responsibility as a teacher. “I have the ability to look at what industry needs and distill bodies of research into lectures and projects designed to produce qualified professionals. One particular advantage we have in transportation engineering is that the everyday world is our lab. Students can easily find many examples of well-designed projects, as well as poorly designed ones.”

Dr. Stamatiadis sees integrating technology with drivers’ assumptions and decision making as a promising area of future research. “Drivers can easily access real-time information on congestion and construction, but we still don’t have a good grasp on how drivers use that information,” he explains. “Do they ‘obey’ the recommendations they are given, or do they simply assume everyone notified of an accident will take an alternate route? There are many opportunities for engineers to make an impact in that area.”

With two decades at UK under his belt, Dr. Stamatiadis shares two hopes—one societal and one personal. His societal hope is that other modes of transportation such as bicycles and buses will become as prevalent in the U.S. as they are around the world. The long-term environmental and economic advantages bear exploring. And the personal hope?

“New Zealand,” he says, smiling. “It’s the only place I haven’t hiked.”

Dr. Michael Kalinski loves his role as an Associate Professor in UK’s Department of Civil Engineering.

“To me, this is a dream job,” he says with notable enthusiasm. “I get to teach. I get to work with young people. I get to do research, and I get to think about clever ways to do new things. It’s a great job.”

Dr. Kalinski’s passion for teaching arises from his respect for students who desire to study civil engineering, as well as his awareness that few students grasp the subject matter the first time. “These students want to learn the material. They’re taking the time and effort, so I want to help them learn it. I think what makes me an effective teacher is that I understand what it’s like to not understand. I know what it’s like to have a professor explain something to me and not get it. I think we’ve all felt that way. So when I’m explaining something to a student, I try to see it from their perspective. I try to appreciate that even if I’m explaining it in a way I think is clear, I may not be getting through to them. Everybody learns differently, so it’s a fun challenge for me to figure out how each student learns.”

“Figuring things out” is a skill Dr. Kalinski has honed over a 25 year career studying engineering geophysics, earthquake engineering and landfill geotechnology, among other subjects. After graduating from the Colorado School of Mines in 1985 with an undergraduate degree in geophysical engineering, Dr. Kalinski became an exploration geophysicist for Tenneco Oil Company in Lafayette, Louisiana. At Tenneco, he used seismic data to map geological structures deep within the Gulf of Mexico. Mapping the structures allowed him and other geoscientists to identify locations where oil and natural gas may have accumulated. The accuracy of Dr. Kalinski’s maps, as well as his interpretation of the seismic data in conference with other geoscientists, ultimately determined whether or not Tenneco would spend millions of dollars drilling a well. “No matter what the maps said, there was never a guarantee we would find oil or gas,” he says, “but our mapping efforts helped us to increase the likelihood of successfully finding oil or gas.”

Dr. Kalinski left Tenneco in 1989 and filled a similar role with Shell Oil, based in Houston. At Shell, rather than making maps and interpreting data, he was a part of a team that acquired the data—planting sensors into the ground and positioning wires, cables and large, shaking trucks, and recording the seismic waves as they transmitted from the trucks to the sensors. He also developed computer processing programs to convert the field seismic data into usable cross sections that would aid the geologists making maps of subsurface geological structures. In 1991, he left Shell to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Texas in Austin. “Being an exploration geophysicist was an enjoyable experience, but I wanted to go back to school and broaden my horizons and opportunities—working other areas of geosciences and engineering rather than just looking for oil.”

Broadening his horizons led Dr. Kalinski into a new area of exploration: earthquake engineering. “Earthquake engineering entails understanding the effects of earthquakes on the ground surface,” he explains. “We, as engineers, need to understand the dynamic properties of soil— how stiff it is and how it tends to attenuate seismic waves—so we can predict how the soil at a particular site will behave when subjected to earthquake-induced ground motion.”

At the local level, Dr. Kalinski’s earthquake engineering research is impacting cities in western Kentucky, such as Paducah and Owensboro, that reside near the New Madrid Seismic Zone—a geographical area susceptible to earthquakes. “Since buildings are constructed on various kinds of soil, there is concern regarding how each soil type will behave if an earthquake occurs.”

From assessing ways to mitigate the strong ground motion of earthquakes to discerning new ways of helping students comprehend the material in his classes, Dr. Michael Kalinski relishes the challenge of making new discoveries in civil engineering, as well as preparing students to become civil engineers. “If you look throughout history, you constantly see examples of civil engineering—most of which we take for granted: drinking water systems, waste water treatment systems, solid waste disposal systems, bridges, dams, highways and other structures that allow our society to function. I find it very satisfying to contribute to that legacy.”

Fresh off an internship with Denham Blythe Inc., a design-build firm in Lexington, Megan McDowell knows the advantages of UK’s civil engineering program.

“Compared to other programs, UK offers a more one-on-one approach with professors,” she says. “They encourage you to get involved on campus and become a well-rounded person.”

McDowell is the recipient of a Kentucky Transportation Cabinet scholarship, and interned for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet for two summers. Internships are a great idea, since “until you actually get out there and get an idea of what you want and what the industry’s actually like you’re kind of lacking,” she says.

Thanks to her internships, McDowell knows what real-life work as a civil engineer is like. “The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet gave me a view of the actual build process. The design internship with Denham Blythe has shown me the design side of things,” she says. “I’ve gained a 360-degree view of how a project is built in the field.”

The curriculum at UK has also helped. “The way that the upper level is designed is very project-oriented,” McDowell says. “The pressures are very similar to the deadlines you’d have in your career.”

The College of Engineering isn’t all work, though. In addition to her studies, McDowell stays busy as a member of the leadership of the Chi Omega sorority, and serves as an Engineering Ambassador. “You can hold a busy extracurricular schedule,” she says. “I’ve been able to keep busy, both inside and outside the curriculum at UK.”

Scott Pabian is a civil engineering graduate student with a focus in structural engineering. Pabian hopes to graduate in 2011, just two short years after receiving his Bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the same university.

Lexington, KY has been home to Pabian for some time, so it was no surprise that he wanted to pursue his engineering education at the flagship institution for the commonwealth. It was on this diverse campus with an amazing faculty and staff that Pabian wanted to call home.

“UK is a well-rounded university in that there are a variety of programs and degrees available. Even though I am an engineering major, I can still take elective classes in topics that interest me in other areas such as economics. I think that the best part of the engineering program is the design experience of the faculty. Many of them have industry experience, which gives them a perspective of what is truly useful to a career-oriented professional,” says Pabian.

One of these faculty members that made a deep impact on Pabian was Dr. Harik. According to Pabian, “Dr. Issam Harik was my most influential professor.  I began working with him while I was still in high school. He has given advice and mentored me for about seven years now, in addition to teaching several classes I have taken.”

The University of Kentucky has stimulated Pabian to grow both personally and academically.  He says, “I have seen myself gain knowledge and understanding, as well as become more willing to try new opportunities.  I’ve taken trips I would have never taken, applied for jobs I never would have considered, and worked in places that I didn’t know existed.”

This is partially how he came to apply for a co-op experience that was out of this world. “In the fall of 2006 I had a co-op experience at NASA Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. I applied on a whim, thinking it would be fun. I wouldn’t trade the experience and maturity I gained for anything,” Pabian says.

Another phenomenal experience that Pabian gained through the engineering program occurred during his final semester as an undergraduate. “I also participated in the Dean’s Leadership course, EGR 599, in spring 2009.  This course gave me the chance to really ponder my possibilities as an engineer,” he says. “It was fun and exciting, as well as informative and interesting.  This course was probably the highlight of my undergraduate classes.”

Each spring this EGR 599 course is taught by Dean Thomas Lester to develop personal leadership philosophy of engineering students through a series of strategies that include learning the concept of leadership and differentiating it from management. Students were also given the opportunity to meet with leaders in the field of engineering, and participate in a capstone trip where they traveled to Washington, D.C. where they met with members of Congress, key staff members, leaders of national engineering societies and high ranking officials of federal agencies focused on engineering related research and development.

It is through this course that students are asked to consider which of these leadership strategies works best for them in their own student organizations, honor societies, or other avenues of community involvement.

“My leadership style was created from my time in the Boy Scouts,” Pabian says. “I try to lead by example, and not ask others to do things I wouldn’t or couldn’t do.  I apply it outside of class by working in groups where I am able to share the load, and make a fair work distribution.  In graduate school, I didn’t have any teaching or TA experience, so I had few leadership capacities outside of my work on the UK Steel Bridge Team.”

As spring looms closer and closer Pabian considers his future plans. “This spring I am working at Palmer Engineering in Winchester Kentucky as a Structural Engineer In Training,” he says. “I have also registered for the CoE/MBA joint degree program and will be starting that in the summer.”

So for now, as graduation will close one chapter of his life here at UK, another will open.

“The knowledge and the experience I’ve gained the past four years I doubt I could have had any place else,” he says.

The majority of this knowledge and experience comes from his research with Dr. Harik and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KTC). “Dr. Harik,” he says, “is like a pioneer in using composites in strengthening bridge structures. I was finishing my masters in Japan when I wrote to him about doing a PhD and he invited me over.”

Upon accepting the offer and moving to the United States, Peiris couldn’t wait to get started with the research.

“In addition to my own research I get to be involved in a lot of different types of engineering research. Most of all I really value being able to do research under Dr. Harik within the Kentucky Transportation Center,” says Peiris.

One example of these findings is in his research project entitled, “Seismic-Hazard Maps and Time Histories for the Commonwealth Of Kentucky.” During this research a study was conducted to emphasize the earthquakes that would have maximum impacts on humans and structures via ground motion hazard maps and time histories for three differing earthquake scenarios in Kentucky.

Peiris says, “working at KTC I’ve been able to do a lot of research and publish most of the findings.” Some of these publishings include his research on, “Seismic Evaluation of Bridges On and Over the Parkways in Western Kentucky,” a study that was performed as an investigation into the bridges on/over the five parkways in Western Kentucky. During the research several bridges identified were deemed susceptible to major earthquakes. Other information accrued during this project will be used in the seismic analysis and future design of Kentucky highway infrastructures.

In addition to his KTC papers Peiris says, “I’ve also co-authored several conference papers. Last April I attended the FHWA Bridge Engineering Conference in Orlando to present some of my own research.”

The FHWA conference normally has over 500 people in attendance. Past attendees have been public sector bridge employees, design professionals, fabricators, contractors, academics as well as representatives of local and federal public agencies from across the United States and possibly several foreign countries.

The conference is seen as an outlet for sharing the latest advancements in bridge engineering with Department of Transportation bridge engineers and owners. In the past conference topics have included best practices of accelerated bridge construction, safety, quality, high performance for steel, concrete, fiber–reinforced polymer composite and timber bridges.

Peiris felt honored to present his research along with numerous other academics in front of such a prestigious panel of attendees. “It was great,” he says, “especially since every one there was specializing in your field of research. I got to meet with people who do similar research and the location in Orlando wasn’t bad either.”

So after graduation what does the future hold for Peiris? “Definitely a big no to a desk job at a company. I still haven’t decided yet. Dr. Harik’s letting me continue work for him after I graduate, so I hope to start applying then. I am mostly interested in doing research, like what I do at KTC, but I might consider a faculty position if I get to do research,” says Peiris.