Research
Overview
For more information and a full list of publications and professional activities please refer to my full CV.
This video provides an additional overview of my work.
Civil infrastructure systems, such as buildings, pipelines, roadways, bridges and airports are the backbone of any nation. They directly impact the sustainability and safety of a country as well as the quality of life of its citizens. However, aging infrastructure systems are facing increasing demands due to urbanization, climate change, and their changing user profile. At the same time, these systems are required to operate with reduced resources.
This combination of factors demands that civil engineers transform the way we design, construct, and operate these systems by using objective information and assessment to enable proactive and data-driven decision-making. In my research, my team of researchers work to enable this transformation through supporting the decisions of engineers and managers during construction and infrastructure operations and management.
There is no doubt that engineers and managers involved in construction and facility/infrastructure operations need situational awareness about the as-is conditions when making daily decisions and developing short- and long-term plans. Yet, currently, data that is incorrectly formatted, inaccessible, or missing limits engineers’ situational awareness. Advances in reality capture technologies, such as 3D imaging, in-situ sensing, equipment on-board instrumentation and electronic tagging, streamline the capturing of the as-is conditions on job sites. The data collected from these technologies, integrated with building information models depicting the as-planned conditions, can help create and store the history of as-is conditions of a facility to support a variety of decisions that engineers and managers need to make. While the opportunities associated with integrating building information models and data capture technologies are compelling, several challenges persist for effective usage of these technologies.
Our research addresses these challenges, which include: assessing the accuracy of the data collected at the field; developing and evaluating data processing and data fusion approaches; formalizing integrated representation of building information models and sensor and other relevant data; and investigating and developing approaches for analyzing and visualizing such integrated information models. This work ultimately intends to support proactive, well-informed decision-making by the engineers and managers that maintain our vital civil infrastructure systems.
Research Team
Min Young Hwang
Causal discovery and inference
Root cause analysis and fault diagnosis
HVAC systems on earth and ECLS systems in space
Raghuram Sunnam
Interface of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Building Energy Modeling (BEM)
HVAC Sequence of Operations Representation
HVAC Controls Diagnostics
Building energy efficiency optimizations
Measurement and verification + Monitoring based commissioning of Building systems
Building envelope commissioning
Nicolas Gratius
Smart habitats for deep space exploration
Probabilistic graphical models
Digital twins
Decision making
Isabel Runge
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Cyber-Physical Security
Building Automation Systems
Digital Twins
Machine Learning
Miaosi Dong
Digital Twins
Construction Management
Smart and Flexible Building Manufacturing
Industry Foundation Classes
Elizabeth Krauss
Zhichen Wang
Digital twin in the built environment
Smart infrastructure
Computer vision in construction
Anand Krishnan Prakash
Semantic Modeling
Digital Twins
Advanced Controls
Past Researchers
Varun Kasireddy
Research Project
Utilization of As-is Building Information Models Obtained from Laser Scan Data for Evaluation of Earthquake Damaged Reinforced Concrete Buildings, February 2015.
Yujie Wei
Recent Appointment
Research Scientist at Meta Reality Labs
Research Project
Detecting BIM errors using unstructured images
Elvin Vindel
Recent Appointment
Energy Consultant at Sargent & Lundy
Research Project
Demand Flexibility Potential Model for Multi-Zone Commercial Buildings using Internal HVAC System States
Zhuoran Zhang
Recent Appointment
Data Scientist at Google Ads
Research Project
Inferring Causal Effects of Work Zone Configurations on Crash Risk
Jerry Lei
Recent Appointment
Building Research Engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory - PNNL
Research Project
Systematic Control Logic Fault Identification and Localization of Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Systems
Engin Burak Anil
Recent Appointment
Manager at Toyota Research Institute
Research Project
Utilization of As-is Building Information Models Obtained from Laser Scan Data for Evaluation of Earthquake Damaged Reinforced Concrete Buildings, February 2015.
Te Gao
Recent Appointment
Senior Applied Science Manager at Amazon
Research Project
Framework for Collecting Data to Improve Construction Productivity, February 2014
Saurabh Taneja
Recent Appointment
Senior Product Specialist II at SAP
Research Project
A Framework for Fusing Sensing Data with Building Information: An Application for Indoor Localization, 05/2013.
Guzide Atasoy
Recent Appointment
Tenure track Assist Prof. of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Middle East Technical University.
Research Project
A visualization framework for construction progress monitoring. 02/2013.
Xuesong (Pine) Liu
Recent Appointment
Co-Founder and CTO at LeanFM Technologies
Research Project
Framework for Supporting Reconfigurable HVAC System, 09/2012
Asli Akcamete
Recent Appointment
Tenure track Assist. Prof. at the Civil Engineering department at Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey
Research Project
A formalism and a framework for updating building information models, 08/2011.
Fernanda Leite
Recent Appointment
Tenure track Assoc. Prof. at the University of Texas at Austin
Research Project
Computational Support for First Responders, 08/2009.
Pingbo Tang
Recent Appointment
Tenure-track Assoc. Prof. at the University of Texas at Austin
Research Project
Extraction of Surveying Goals from Point Clouds Obtained from Laser Scanners to Support Bridge Inspection, 08/2009.
Anu Pradhan
Recent Appointment
Senior machine learning and software engineer at Bloomberg
Research Project
Formalization of multi-source data fusion to support construction productivity monitoring, 08/2009.
Semiha Ergan
Recent Appointment
Tenure-track Assist Prof. at the Civil and Environmental Engineering department at New York University
Research Project
Formalization of Creating a Method-Based Project History for Supporting Cost Estimating Decisions, 05/2008.
Chris Gordon
Recent Appointment
Associate Dean, School of Engineering at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Research Project
A Formalism and a Framework for Planning of Sensor-Based Inspections on Construction Sites, 12/2006.
Hongjun Wang
Recent Appointment
Software Engineer at Google
Research Project
Domain-Oriented Semi-Automated Model Matching for Supporting Building Commissioning-Related Data Exchange, 05/2006.
Frank Boukamp
Recent Appointment
Senior Lecturer for Construction Management at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Melbourne Area, Australia
Research Project
Modeling and Reasoning about Construction Specifations for Automated Defect Detection. 05/2006.
Kevin Tantisevi
Recent Appointment
Tenure-track Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at King Mongkut's University of Technology, North Bangkok.
Research Project
Formalization and Automation of Generation of Equipment Work Spaces on Construction Sites. 05/2006.
Esin Ergen
Recent Appointment
Professor at the Civil Engineering department at Instabul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Research Project
Formalization of Life-Cycle Data Management of Pre-engineering Components using Advanced Tracking Technologies, 11/2005.
Jan Reinhardt
Recent Appointment
The Founder and the Principal of ADEPT Project Delivery, LLC.
Research Project
Navigational Models For Effective And Efficient Interaction With Product and Process Models on Construction Sites, 12/2003.