Four of my students (Vyoma Jani, Pratik Neupane, Prajwal Chaudhary, and Jianqiao Song) attended the 2024 Bays and Bayous Symposium in Biloxi, Mississippi, on November 19, 2024. We delivered two oral presentations and showcased two posters, providing an excellent representation of our research work. Additionally, we hosted a booth for the Gulf Coast Environmental Equity Center (GCEEC) at the conference, which attracted significant interest and allowed us to share our initiatives and contributions benefiting the Gulf Coast region.

My Ph.D. student Abeeb Oyelere delivered a presentation titled "Economic Circularity: Fundamentals of Circularity" at The Gateway Business Conference, held on November 13–14, 2024, at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex. The event, centered around the theme “Business Sustainability: The Business of Tomorrow,” attracted over 50 attendees, including business owners, sustainability professionals, supply chain experts, government officials, and nonprofit leaders. The audience was composed of ethnic minorities representing sectors such as manufacturing, technology, logistics, and environmental services, all with a shared interest in advancing their businesses.

I am deeply honored to receive the Recognizing Academic Research Excellence (RARE) Award during the 3rd Annual Research and Technology Showcase, hosted by the Office of Research and Economic Development on October 29, 2024. I sincerely appreciate the support of my students, collaborators, and colleagues, which made this achievement possible.   

Here is the video about my work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmF7MT79wXM 

My master's student, Prajwal Chaudhary, received a travel award from the American Concrete Institute (ACI) to attend the ACI Conference held in Philadelphia, PA, from November 3–6, 2024. This was his first time attending a professional conference, providing a valuable opportunity to network with professionals from various concrete industries. During the event, he also conducted interviews and gathered information for his research on concrete pavement design methods. We also took the opportunity to advertise our NSF REU program at USA.

One of my greatest pleasures is mentoring undergraduates and high schoolers in research. I had the privilege of working with six talented students in the summer of 2024. Check out their poster presentations from USA's Undergraduate Research Symposium on October 23, 2024, covering a variety of topics: precipitation simulator (Charles Turner, Derek Ricafort), cold mix asphalt (Conor Novack), waste plastics (Carly Charbonnet), asphalt binder testing index (Darshan Patel), and green energy (Luke Lansdown). Special thanks to my graduate students, Abeeb Oyelere and Basant Bhatt, for their valuable assistance in the lab.

It was a great pleasure to present our research progress on the NOAA-funded project, Gulf Coast Center for Addressing Microplastic Pollution (GC-CAMP), at the 2024 Restore America's Estuaries (RAE) Summit, October 6 - 10, in Washington, DC! I was thrilled to share our advancements in interdisciplinary collaboration to address microplastics issues in the Gulf Coast region. Many thanks to Dr. Madison Willert from NOAA for the invitation—we made many valuable connections.

My students and I participated in a new field paving project that utilized 100% reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) for cold mix asphalt in Walton County, Florida from September 16 to 17, 2024 . This was an excellent opportunity to learn about state-of-the-art paving practices and see our research put into action. Thanks all to my students for the hard work: Abeeb Oyelere, Sajid Karim, Basant Bahatt, Pratik Neupane, and Prajwal Chaudhary.

On September 26, 2024, I was invited to attend the Interdisciplinary Academic Symposium at Troy University and visit their new Center for Materials & Manufacturing Sciences. I presented on "Interdisciplinary Collaboration for Materials Sustainability, Resilience, and Environmental Stewardship in the Gulf Coast Region". The symposium featured excellent topics on plastics and polymer recycling, and provided a valuable opportunity to learn about the work being done at institutions such as UAB, UA, USA, Auburn, Iowa State, Cornell, and Texas A&M University.

It was a great opportunity to attend the 5-day IDEAAL DR2 Short Course on disaster research at the University of Washington from August 5 to 9, 2024. The experience was rich, not only in learning concepts and principles in class, but also in visiting Seattle’s downtown unreinforced masonry buildings, RAPID facility, and the Seattle Emergency Operations Center.

I attended a 2-day workshop on concrete teaching offered by American Concrete Institute (ACI) from July 23 to 24, 2024. It was a great opportunity to learn more about concrete technology and state-of-the-art teaching techniques that I can apply to my Civil Engineering Materials and Pavement Design courses.

It is my great pleasure to be selected by the editor of the Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering as an ASCE 2023 Outstanding Reviewer. This is my third time receiving this recognition. Volunteering for the academic community is always a mission I hold dear.

I am pleased to present our education work titled “Fostering Student Ownership and Active Learning through Student-Led Group Lectures in a Civil Engineering Materials Course” at the 2024 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) annual conference in Portland, Oregon from June 23 to 26, 2024 . It was an excellent event to connect with thousands of engineering educators, learning from each other and striving for excellence in engineering education.

As an Ambassador for the Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP), I met with hundreds of practitioners, academics, engineers, and stakeholders to introduce ACRP at the ASCE International Conference on Transportation and Development and the 19th International Conference on Automated People Movers and Automated Transit Systems in Atlanta, from June 15 to 17, 2024.

I presented the research work titled "Evaluation of An Innovative Water Contactless Method for Measuring Specific Gravity of Aggregates and Asphalt Mixture at the 8th Eurasphalt & Eurobitume (E&E) Congress in Butapest, Hungary from June 19 to 21, 2024. It was wonderful to conect with leading asphalt industry practitioners, researchers, stakeholders, and engineers. Special thanks to my former students, Omar Tahri and Michael Cottrell, for their outstanding work. 

Congratulations to Basant Bhatt and Pratik Neupane for successfully presenting their educational work at the 14th Annual South Alabama Conference on Teaching and Learning (CoTL) from May 6 to 8, 2024. At the University of South Alabama, we are committed to continuously improving our undergraduate students' learning. There is always room for improvement.

On May 12, 2024, we host the 1st Annual Meeting of the Gulf Coast Center for Addressing Microplastics Pollution (GC-CAMP). This day-long and highly anticipated event served as a platform for researchers, practitioners, and industry leaders to share insights and collaborate on innovative solutions to microplastic pollution through a schedule filled with educational sessions, networking opportunities, committee discussions, and collaborative planning.

On February 27, 2024, we had an invaluable experience visiting Blacklidge Emulsion Co. in Gulfport, MS. This real-world visit has greatly benefited our both undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in the Advanced Characterization of Transportation Materials course, helping them better relate AASHTO and ASTM standards to industry practices.

We are extremely grateful to Mrs. Maria Knake from NIST for her visit to the University of South Alabama. Mrs. Knake's engagement with both undergraduate and graduate students, along with colleagues, was truly enriching. We are pleased to collaborate with NIST in shaping industry-ready civil engineers, by integrating essential standards, specifications, and codes into our educational framework.

Congratulations to Abeeb for receiving the travel award to attend the American Concrete Institute in New Orleans, LA, from March 24 to March 27, 2024. This event provided an excellent opportunity to network with researchers, students, and industry professionals from around the world.

Dr. Wu was invited to visit the Alabama School of Math and Science as a panelist for the CSO Assembly on April 2, 2024, in Mobile, AL. Many high school students expressed great interest in research during the event!

Dr. Wu presented the work about "Understanding, Mitigation and Prevention of Waste Plastic Marine Debris in the Gulf Coast" at the Gulf of Mexico Conference, Tampa, FL, February 19-22, 2024.

Dr. Wu presented "Creating a Solid Waste Sustainability Hub to Enhance Reducing, Recycling, and Repurposing" at the 2nd International Conference on Environmental Sustainability Through Waste and Recycling, Boston, MA, March 11-13, 2024.

Abeeb Oyelere and Basant Bhatt presented at the 103rd TRB Annual Meeting, January 7–11, 2024. Two posters: "Evaluation of Cracking Tolerance Index for Long-term Field Cracking Performance of Asphalt Pavements"; and Implementation of A Sustainable Asphalt Technology in a Low Volume Road Toward Carbon Neutralization.

Abeeb also presented the "Incorporating Microplastics Into Asphalt Binders" at ASCE Bituminous Materials Committee. 

Congratulations to Eddie Rodriguez, a senior civil engineering student, has been awarded a national scholarship from the National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA). This marks the second time a South student has received this prestigious honor.

Eddie has been working on research in the area of recycled materials in asphalt binders and mixtures. He also serves as the President of the Society of Sustainable Engineering.

We hosted a 2-day Solid Waste Sustainability Hub camp for high school students on November 4th and 5th, 2023. Students had the opportunity to explore our beautiful USA campus, visit the Mobile County Recycling Center, and engage with various laboratories and facilities. They interacted closely with our professors and students, focusing on the principles of solid waste management: recycling, repurposing, reducing, and rethinking. The camp included engaging activities such as creating and crushing glasscrete and plastcrete, learning about microplastic removal, crafting recycled glass artifacts, and participating in a group community project competition. It was an enriching experience filled with both education and enjoyment for all participants.

I am pleased to have been selected to serve as the Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) ambassador, to promote the industry-driven, applied research program that makes a difference and connects practitioners, stakeholders, researchers, educators, and more. Welcome to visit the ACRP website: https://lnkd.in/gz8fGmqf, and explore numerous opportunities of aviation and airfield research publications, funding opportunities, panel nomination, engagement, and students competition and fellowship. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me.  

My advised undergraduate students showcased their research projects at the 25th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium on October 26th, 2023. Great job, Levi Arroyo and Alexander McNair!

It is my greatest honor for being recognized as a Mortar Board Top Prof on October 30, 2023. Thank you Eddie for your nomination!

I was invited to deliver a talk about strategies to successful grants at the Grant Writing at the 2023 Alabama Recycling Coalition Conference & Expo at greater Birmingham area, AL, on August 23, 2023. Great connection with recycling industry! 

I presented a research work about sustainable asphalt paving using cold mix asphalt at the 2023 Arkansas Engineering Forum & Southeast Symposium on Contemporary Engineering Topics (SSCET) at Little Rocks, AR, on September 15, 2023. 

I completed a 6-day ASCE ExCEEd teaching workshop at Colorado State University from July 30 to August 4, 2023. This is the most intensive, challenging but rewarding workshop I ever had! It is my great fortunate to know those colleagues who have great passion about teaching our future civil engineers! I love my team CATSS, the Coalition of Awesome Teacher for Student Success. Go CATSS! Let’s teach, teach, teach!

I visited the Department of Civil Engineering at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP) campus in Lima, Peru on August 18, 2023. The visit served as an excellent opportunity to initiate discussions and foster potential collaboration. I was particularly impressed by the beauty of the campus.

I participated a NSF RAPID Equipment Training Workshop from July 25 to 28th, 2023, in the University of Washington. 

I participated a workshop Exploring Multi-hazard and Multi-physics Hybrid Simulation from August 8 to 10, 2023 in Purdue University.

A great visit to National Center for Asphalt Technology (NCAT) for both undergraduate and graduate students who took Pavement Design course in the summer of 2023! 

A visit to Emerald Coast Utilities Authority in Cantonment, Florida for exploring microplastics capturing and detection on July 14, 2023.

I was pleased to moderate the "Case Studies on Concrete and Asphalt Pavements" session at the ASCE International Airfield & Highway Pavements Conference in Austin, TX, June 14 -17, 2023. I also presented the research conducted by our group, which focuses on cold mix asphalt, air voids content measurement, and cracking analysis.

It was great pleasure to be invited to visit Ludong University in Yantai City, Shandong Province, China, from May 22 to 24, 2023. I had the opportunity to share our research on the utilization of 100% reclaimed asphalt pavement in cold mix asphalt. The campus, laboratory facilities, and the city as a whole left a lasting impression with their remarkable quality and infrastructure.

I am pleased to lead a multidisciplinary team for an NOAA funded project, with a budget of approximately $2 million, to address microplastic issue in the Gulf Coast.

Link: https://seagrant.noaa.gov/News/Article/ArtMID/1660/ArticleID/2929/NOAA-Sea-Grant-announces-27M-to-further-community-engaged-marine-debris-removal-and-prevention  

https://www.southalabama.edu/departments/publicrelations/pressreleases/060423microplastics.html  

I am proud to be part of the team for the Noyce NSF STREAM grant, which will prepare future teachers for the challenging task of serving as STEM educators. This 1.2-million project is funded by National Science Foundation. 

Link: https://www.southalabama.edu/departments/publicrelations/pressreleases/041423noycescholarship.html 

A newsletter was published by the University of South Alabama to recognize high bar of students achievements: https://www.southalabama.edu/departments/publicrelations/pressreleases/020123transportation.html 

Dr. Wu co-presided the lecture session of "Assessment and Characterization of Properties of Stabilized and Recycled Materials" with Dr. Wayne Lee from University of Rhode Island on Monday 1/9. There were 6 presentations from Mississippi, Alabama, California, Indiana, and FHWA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The session was well attended with more than 100 attendees. 

Dr. Wu presided the poster session of AJE35 Standing Committee on Research Innovation, Implementation and Management (RIIM) on Tuesday 1/10. The posters display transportation-related projects leveraging research innovation or implementation. A key theme is interdisciplinary approaches. A poster competition was launched for all 13 poster presentations.

Dr. Wu visited the University of Caribbean in Cancun, Mexico and had active interactions with students and faculty members from October 4 to 8, 2022.

Dr. Wu attended the International Conference on Transportation and Development by ASCE in Seattle, WA in June 2022, and presented several posters.

Dr. Wu presented a poster about cold mix asphalt at 101th Transportation Research Board meeting.The paper titled "Case Study: Characterization of Short-term Field Aged Asphalt Binders in Cold Mix Asphalt Pavement" was published in the Construction and Building Materials in 2022. Read more...

The University of South Alabama published a research story about Dr. Wu's research that focuses on 100% reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) cold mix asphalt for a low volume road. Reading more... 

The University of South Alabama published a newsletter about Dr. Wu's research. Cooling Off a Hot Mess: South Researchers Test Ways to Make Asphalt Production Safer, More Environmentally Friendly in 2019. Read more...

Omar Tahri presented a poster "An Alternative Permeability Indicator to Determine Optimal Maintenance Timing for Open-Graded Friction Course" at 99th TRB annual meeting. The paper was published by TRR. Read more...

Dr. Wu gave a lecture at California State University Fresno using team-based learning (TBL) modules to improve students' technical writing skills in March 2020.  

Great presentation of South Alabama at the 98th TRB Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., in January 2019.

Omar Tahri presented his work about bio-graphene for reinforcing asphalt pavement at the Undergraduate Research Symposium in November 2019, and NSF EPSCoR CPU2AL Annual Meeting in April 2019. Well done! 

Dr. Wu presented at the first International Conference on Stone Matrix Asphalt (SMA) in Atlanta, GA in November 2018.  

The newly initiated student organization, Society for Sustainable Engineers (SSE) hosts regularly meeting to connect sustainability and resiliency professionals with our engineering students. Contact us: sse@southalabama.edu 

Pie-A-Professor! I had a great fun, and I bet you had more fun when throwing a pie on my face. Lol...

Dr. Wu received the College of Engineering "Excellence In Teaching" Award in May 2021. Read more ... 

Dr. Wu received the 2020-2021 Community Engagement Faculty Fellows. Read more... 

Dr. Wu designed and integrated team-based learning (TBL) modules into a civil engineering materials lab course to improve students' technical writing skills. Read more...  

Dr. Wu led civil engineering students to visit Bayou Concrete plant, getting the state-of-art concrete production and interacting with engineers.

Students are having fun with concrete batching, testing, and competing which team has the world-class concrete design! Learning from the hands-on work always helps us learn effectively!

Mr. Shadrack Mboya is invited at Civil Engineering Materials class to give our South students a lecture on concrete pavement. Thank you so much Shadrack for your passion and tremendous  support! 

Students visited at H.O. Weaver asphalt plant in Mobile Alabama. More than 98% roadways are surfaced with asphalt. We love asphalt for its smoothness and ride quality. Thank you Michael and Jeff for endless support and hosting tours every year for our south students!

Are you sure your designed truss bridge works well? Let's do a testing on the prototype! Engineering students formed into teams and competed the best truss bridge design, as part of Statics course. 

Students visited Alabama Pipe & Supply for a eye-opening learning about the concrete pipe. Have you ever seen 10-in or zero slump concrete?

Undergraduate students had an opportunity to operate dynamic shear rheometer in asphalt laboratory to understand the rheological properties of asphalt binders in relations to high temperature performances. 

As part of Pavement Design course, Dr. Wu led students from USA, UAB, and UAH to visit National Center for Asphalt Technology (NCAT) at Auburn University in 2018. This is an online course, but it is great to see everyone in person. 

Dr. Wu led students who took Mechanics of Materials and Fluid Mechanics to visit Fairhope Microbrewery. We were thrilled to see how the beer fluid is made and how it impacts the vessel and tank. Awesome trip! 

Chinese Students & Scholars Association (CSSA) organized one of the biggest gala events for celebrating Spring Festival and embracing the diversity and inclusion in the Student Center at the University of South Alabama in January 2019. 

The College of Engineering celebrated 50th anniversary in 2019! I am very proud to be part of the big family! 

Chinese Students & Scholars Association (CSSA) organized Mid-autumn Festival in Terrace Room of Student Center at the University of South Alabama in September 2019. Mid-autumn festival is as important as Thanksgiving for family reunion and gathering. All students enjoyed the food, music, and activities very much. 

CSSA promoted Spring Festival and culture at Student Center during the pandemic in February 2021.