| Abstract |
The purpose of this supplemental project was to collect invaluable data from the large-scale construction sites of Egnatia Odos motorway needed to validate a novel automated vision-tracking method created under the parent grant. For this purpose, one US graduate and three US undergraduate students traveled to Greece for 4 months and worked together with 2 Greek graduate students of the local faculty collaborator. This team of students monitored project activities and scheduled data collection trips on a daily basis, setup a mobile video data collection lab on the back of a truck, and drove to various sites every day to collect hundreds of hours of video from multiple cameras on a large variety of activities ranging from soil excavation to bridge construction. The US students were underrepresented students from minority groups who had never visited a foreign country. As a result, this trip was a major life experience to them. They learned how to live in a non-English speaking country, communicate with Greek students, workers and engineers. They lead a project in a very unfamiliar environment, troubleshoot myriad problems that hampered their progress daily and, above all, how to collaborate effectively and efficiently with other cultures. They returned to the US more mature, with improved leadership and problem-solving skills and a wider perspective of their profession.
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| Bio |
Ioannis Brilakis received his Diploma in Civil Engineering from the University of Patras, Greece in 2001. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Construction Management from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA in 2002 and 2005, respectively. He joined University of Michigan, Ann Arbor as an Assisstant Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering from July 2005 to December 2008. He joined Georgia Institute of Technology as an Assisstant Professor in January 2009. He is the director of the Construction Information Technology Laboratory and an active member of several academic and professional organizations.
Francisco Cordova received his Diploma is Civil Engineering from University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez in 2007. He received his M.S. degree in Construction Management from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2008. He worked as a research assistant for Dr. Brilakis from 2007-2008 working on the Automated Vision Based Tracking of Project Related Entities project.
Phillip Clark, Russell Hinkle, and Peter Mattes are Undergraduate students at University of Michigan. They are expected to graduate with BSE in Civil and Environmental Engineering in 2009, 2011, and 2009 respectively. They worked in the CIT Laboratory at University of Michigan under the direction of Dr. Brilakis. |
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