CE 573 Video Student Profiles

 Stephanie Austad

This is my last class in my 8 year journey toward a Master's of Engineering. I have 2 children: a 3 year old boy, and an 8 month old girl.   I work full time for Lockheed Martin at the INEEL. I have a P.E. in Civil Engineering and work in the Architectural Design arena, performing structural calcs and architectural design of buildings. Other than a highway construction summer job while in college, I have very little transportation engineering experience. It's interesting to note, though, that my father worked for a heavy highway construction company during the road building era of the 50s and 60s and influenced my decision to become a Civil Engineer.  I live in Idaho Falls, Idaho, which is located in southeast Idaho. We have a population of approximately 50,000 people. The city's  commercial sector did not expand along the freeway or major highways, but along existing streets that do not have the capacity to accommodate the associated traffic volume or the space to expand. Congestion, delays, and accidents are common.

Doug Camenisch

I am a project manager for W&H Pacific in Boise.  My engineering experience has been in the transportation and hydrology fields as well as construction management.  The key transportation issues in the Boise area are congestion on arterial routes and new roadway corridors connecting north and south Boise.  I am currently working on three new arterial connections in Boise (Curtis Road Extension, West ParkCenter River Crossing, and the Maple Grove Road extension).

 

Maury Fortney

I am a practicing engineer registered in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.  I have owned my own consulting firm since 1990.  I also teach at Walla Walla Community College.  My past experience has been with the City of Walla Walla (city engineer) and Walla Walla County (bridge engineer) and JA Jones construction company (field engineer).  I have done a great deal of work in the field of traffic.  The reason for taking this course is to improve my skills required to do traffic studies.  The project that I am working on in Umatilla is right now in the middle of a traffic study to determine the impacts on the street system of the City of Umatilla and the traffic patterns within the development.

 

Ed Wydra

I graduated from Manhattan College in 1968 with a BCE.  I graduated from the U.S. Air Force Undergraduate Pilot Training in 1969.  I graduated from Central Michigan University in 1979 with an M.A. in Management and Supervision.  I retired from the Air Force in 1988, after spending 15 years in the cockpit and 5 years in Civil Engineering at the Base Level.  I went to work for Placer County in 1988 and worked in Land Development for about six years before transferring into Special Districts where I currently work as an Associate Engineer, primarily on the rehab of our failing sewer collection system.  I became a registered civil engineer in California in 1995.  This class will enhance my knowledge about traffic issues and their relationships to new developments.

 

Zhen Li

I am a graduate student and research assistant at the National Institute for Advanced Transportation Technology at the University of Idaho. I came from Beijig, China one year before.  Before I came to UI, I was a lecturer and researcher of Northern Jiaotong University of China. I got my master degree there. Before I came to UI, I had worked for eight years. (four years in a company, four years in the Northern Jiaotong University). The most interesting thing to me is programming. I like do some research in computer applications in transportation. I am now working on a project called the Controller Interface Device. My job for this project is development of the software interface between a traffic controller and the traffic simulation model CORSIM.

 

Kris Jagarapu

I am a graduate student in Civil Engineering Department specializing in Transportation Engineering at University of Idaho. This is my first semester in  the US.  I graduated from Andhra University, India in 1998 with a B.E. in Civil Engineering. I worked for one year as a site engineer in a construction company in India. I am interested in Transportation and would like to learn the latest developments in the field.  Our country is a developing country and we have a lot of traffic problems, in the major cities and on some National highways the traffic jams are most common. I would like to work for a few years in this field after I finish my M.S. program here in this country and go back to my country and work there.