Civil engineering professor Mihalis Golias says current U.S. infrastructure maintenance is in terrible shape. “To continue to have the strongest economy, you need to invest in transportation,” he says. He believes returning manufacturing jobs to the U.S. can have a major impact on transportation infrastructure and the overall U.S. economy.
Transportation (CAIT) at Rutgers and associate director of research at the Intermodal Freight Transportation Institute at the U of M. He homes in on facility operations, network design and traffic planning, focusing on public-private stakeholders and the areas of productivity, reliability, resilience and safety. His core research and teaching expertise are in intermodal freight transportation. Novel mathematical models that “capture real-world environments and provide robust solutions against the uncertainty that everyday operations entail” are his forte. And Memphis, he says, is a terrific fit, being a busy, commercial port on the Mississippi, one of the world’s major river systems, as well as an important rail and roadway hub. A federal government-funded project he’s working on takes full advantage of Memphis’ locale, geology (in the New Madrid Seismic Zone) and transport networks. Using bridge models, the research simulates vulnerabilities of transportation infrastructure hit by a high-magnitude earthregimes or rogue non-state actors) and what kinds of actions might follow their words. Language is a window of insight into who people are, which is useful when those people are idiosyncratic and reside in opaque societies.”
Fluid logistics solutions during an earthquake Surrounded by whiteboards full of script, scrawls and algorithms, Dr. Mihalis M. Golias pauses mid-stream in explanation to unabashedly reveal that his destiny arrived with an epiphany. In the bustling port of Thessaloniki, Greece, on an Aristotle University engineering class outing, this son of Macedonia stood in the shadow of an enormous quay crane loading container ships and he knew. “I knew I had found my calling in a field that deals with transportation and the sea,” says Golias, University of Memphis associate professor of transportation, Department of Civil Engineering. “We Greeks, with a history of shipping of over 3,500 years, have always loved the sea, thought of it as a beautiful element of our lives. “I love transportation,” he says, talking with his hands, punctuating his passion, “and especially maritime transportation.” Golias earned his master’s and a PhD in transportation engineering at Rutgers University, where he met his wife, Natasha, a graphic designer from Ukraine. At Rutgers, his adviser introduced him to what he calls “a whole new world of freight transportation.” Today, the personable Professor Golias — “Call me Mike!” — is a research associate with the Center for Advanced Infrastructure and W W W. M E M P H I S . E D U
quake: traffic, rail, routes, interruptions and ripple effects nationwide. The entire earthquake vulnerability project ($235,000; 2014-2016) is designed to examine resilience after a disaster and to develop decision support tools for emergency management. Infrastructure maintenance is in terrible shape, Golias laments, pointing to the American Society of Civil Engineers’ grade (D+) for U.S. transportation infrastructure and its estimate of investment needed by 2020 ($3.6 trillion). “To continue to be the strongest economy, you need to invest in transportation, including the people, the undergraduates, to develop the workforce,” he emphasizes. At the U of M, Golias has developed 10 courses on transportation engineering and planning, freight transportation and logistics. Recent grants ($850,000+ total) he has received from the Tennessee Department of Transportation entail developing data, models and evaluations for rail crossings, crash prediction, truck trips and emissions. He is principal investigator in a study to evaluate reshoring — returning manufacturing jobs to America — and its impact on transportation infrastructure and the U.S. economy ($90,000; 2014-2015, U.S. Department of Transportation, National Center for Freight & Infrastructure Research & Education). He is co-principal investigator on three CFIRE freight and/or rail studies ($1.6 million+). “But my dream, my real ambition? I would love to be a great educator,” he says with a smile. P R ESI DENT’S R EPORT 2014
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