People
Leadership and Faculty
The faculty in NAU’s Department of Civil Engineering, Construction Management, and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Geography, Planning, and Recreation bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to our students’ education. Contact information for each faculty member, including email and phone number, is found below.
Edward J. Smaglik, Ph. D., P.E.
Biography Accordion Closed
Dr. Edward J. Smaglik, P.E., is a Professor at Northern Arizona University (NAU), Flagstaff, AZ, in the Department of Civil Engineering, Construction Management, and Environmental Engineering. The Director of AZTrans: The Arizona Laboratory for Applied Transportation Research, Dr. Smaglik has over 16 years of academic research and teaching experience, preceded by 2 years of experience as a post-doctoral research associate.
Dr. Smaglik currently serves as Chair of the TRB ACP25 Traffic Signal Systems Committee and his research focuses on advanced uses of vehicle detection, traffic signal systems analyses, transportation performance measures, and multimodal operations.
A faculty member at NAU since 2007, Dr. Smaglik has served as the Principal Investigator on transportation related projects over a wide range of topics in this discipline. Specifically, he has investigated projects on the following topics: improving pedestrian operations and reducing bicycle conflicts at signalized intersections to provide for a more livable environment for all users, developing performance measures from existing infrastructure at signalized intersections, mitigating special event congestion through the use of ITS technologies, the development of a sustainable traffic counting device, improving safety on free flow facilities using ITS technologies, and investigating the impacts of alternative vehicle detection devices on adaptive traffic control.
Dr. Smaglik has been recognized as the Department Scholar Exemplar in 2017 and 2014, is the recipient of the 2008 Institute of Transportation Engineers’ Traffic Engineering Council Outstanding Paper Award, as well as a recipient of awards for outstanding performance as a teaching assistant and graduate student during his tenure in graduate school.
Education
May 2005 Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, Civil Engineering, PhD
May 2001 Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, Civil Engineering, MS
May 1999 Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, Civil Engineering, BS
Work experience
05/2017 – Present Professor, Northern Arizona University
05/2013 – 05/2017 Associate Professor, Northern Arizona University
08/2007 – 05/2013 Assistant Professor, Northern Arizona University
08/2005 – 07/2007 Post-Doctoral Visiting Faculty, Purdue University
01/2002 – 05/2006 Graduate Research Assistant, Purdue University
08/1999 – 05/2002 Graduate Teaching Assistant, Purdue University
05/1999 – 08/2001 Summer Traffic Control Intern, City of Milwaukee, WI
01/1997 – 08/1998 Project Intern, Opus North Corporation
Licenses and certificates
Registered Professional Engineer, AZ #50962
Professional memberships
Member, Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE)
Member, ITS Arizona
Chair, TRB Committee ACP25 Traffic Signal Systems
Member, ASCE Street & Highway Operations Committee
Brendan J. Russo, Ph.D., P.E.
Biography Accordion Closed
Dr. Brendan Russo is an Associate Professor of Civil Engineering at Northern Arizona University, where he also serves as Associate Director of AZTrans: The Arizona Laboratory for Applied Transportation Research. Dr. Russo has extensive transportation-related research, teaching, and professional work experience, and he holds a B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering from Wayne State University and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering with a focus in transportation from Iowa State University. His primary research areas include traffic/transportation safety, safety impacts of automated driving system (ADS)-equipped vehicles, safety performance and economic assessments of roadway design features, vulnerable road user safety and behavior, and econometric methods for transportation data analysis. He is a member of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), the Transportation Research Board (TRB) ACS10 Transportation Safety Management Systems Committee (also serving as the Committee Research Coordinator), the TRB AKD20 Roadside Safety Design Committee, and he is a registered Professional Engineer in Arizona. Dr. Russo has been involved with numerous transportation-related research projects funded by the United States Department of Transportation (DOT), the Arizona, Michigan, Montana, and Oregon DOTs, the Arizona Institute of Automated Mobility, the Maricopa Association of Governments, the City of Phoenix, and the City of Scottsdale.
Education
Aug 2015 Iowa State University, Ames, IA, Civil Engineering, PhD
May 2012 Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, Civil Engineering, MS
Dec 2009 Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, Civil Engineering, BS
Work experience
08/2021- Present Associate Professor, Northern Arizona University
08/2015 – 08/2021 Assistant Professor, Northern Arizona University
08/2014 – 08/2015 Graduate Research/Teaching Assistant, Iowa State University
08/2012 – 08/2014 Graduate Research/Teaching Assistant, Wayne State University
05/2010 – 08/2012 Graduate Research Assistant, Wayne State University
05/2009 – 11/2009 Construction Inspector, Michigan Department of Transportation
05/2007 – 05/2009 Undergraduate Research Assistant, Wayne State University
Licenses and certificates
Registered Professional Engineer, Arizona
Professional memberships
Member, Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE)
Member and Research Coordinator, TRB Committee ACS10 Transportation Safety Management Systems
Member, TRB Committee AKD20 Roadside Safety Design
Steven R. Gehrke, Ph.D.
Biography Accordion Closed
Dr. Steven Gehrke is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography, Planning, and Recreation at Northern Arizona University (NAU). He received his M.S. in Community Planning from the University of Maryland and Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Portland State University. He has professional affiliations with the Department of Civil Engineering, Construction Management, and Environmental Engineering at NAU and National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education. Prior to arriving at NAU, Dr. Gehrke was a Senior Transportation Analyst at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council in Boston, Massachusetts.
Dr. Gehrke studies sustainable transportation planning and engineering, with research interests in active transportation and micromobility, the future of automobility, transportation and land use interactions, and activity and travel behavior analysis. He has published dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles on these topics, with grant support from a variety of funding sponsors, including federal, state, regional, and local government agencies. His recent research and extramural grant activities have centered on the design and implementation of a web-based cyclist route decision-making tool to assess the transportation safety and security barriers in cyclist accessibility; administration of video and survey data collection instruments to evaluate sidewalk autonomous delivery robot interactions with pedestrians and bicyclists; and analysis of ridehailing driver-generated trajectories to investigate the spatial equity implications of ridehailing vehicle trip frequencies and miles traveled.
Education
March 2017 Portland State University, Portland, OR, Civil and Environmental Engineering, PhD
May 2011 University of Maryland, College Park, MD, Community Planning, MCP
June 2007 Portland State University, Portland, OR, Geographic Information Systems, Graduate Certificate
May 2003 New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, Geography, BS
Work experience
08/2019-Present Assistant Professor, Northern Arizona University
07/2017-05/2019 Senior Research Analyst, Metropolitan Area Planning Council, Boston, MA
09/2011-07/2017 Graduate Research Assistant, Civil and Environmental Engineering Portland State University
08/2009-08/2011 Graduate Research Assistant, National Center for Smart Growth, University of Maryland
08/2007-08/2011 Transportation Analyst, KFH Group, Inc., Bethesda, MD
Robin Garrett Tuchscherer, Ph.D.
Biography Accordion Closed
Prior to entering academia, Dr. Tuchscherer accumulated over eight years of experience as a structural engineer and consultant. He has been the project manager, engineer-of-record, or project engineer for a wide-range of projects including bridges, municipalities, schools, structural condition assessments, industrial facilities, and hospitals. Thus, Dr. Tuchscherer has a well-rounded sense of the constructability issues that affect the profession. His structural engineering research interests focus on the experimental testing, design, behavior, and performance of structural concrete and masonry infrastructure; specifically, large-scale assemblies, discontinuity regions, service limit states, and condition assessments. His engineering education research interests focus on students’ sense of belonging and community in the classroom; and improving knowledge transfer through relevancy and situated cognition.
Education
University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, Structural Engineering, PhD
University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, Structural Engineering, MS
University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, Civil Engineering (Structural Emphasis), BS
Work experience
2017 – Present, Associate Professor, Northern Arizona University
2018 – 2019, On Sabbatical, Kiewit Infrastructure Engineers (KIE)
2011 – 2017, Assistant Professor, Northern Arizona University
2008 – 2011, Project Engineer and Project Manager, Datum Engineers
2004 – 2008, Graduate Research and Teaching Assistant, University of Texas at Austin
1999 – 2004, Structural Engineer, Applied Technologies
1999 – 1999, Engineering Intern, Dept of Public Works, City of Milwaukee
1998 – 1999, Structural Laboratory Technician, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee
1996 – 1998, Engineering Intern, Construction Technology Laboratories & Portland Cement Association
Licenses and certificates
Professional Structural Engineer State of Arizona
Professional Civil Engineer State of Arizona
Professional Engineer in State of Wisconsin
Professional memberships
American Concrete Institute
Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute
American Society of Engineering Educators
American Society of Civil Engineers
Benjamin Z. Dymond, Ph.D.
Biography Accordion Closed
Dr. Benjamin Z. Dymond is an Associate Professor at Northern Arizona University (NAU) in Flagstaff, AZ, in the Department of Civil Engineering, Construction Management, and Environmental Engineering. Dr. Dymond has 10 years of experience conducting academic research, teaching collegiate courses, and practicing as a professional structural engineer.
A faculty member since 2016, Dr. Dymond has built a research program that aims to deepen the understanding of structural behavior through application of short-term sensing techniques during non-destructive testing, characterization of structural performance for new bridge design and for use during rating of existing bridges, and examination of innovative materials for extending the service life of bridges. Dr. Dymond has been a principal or co-principal investigator on funded grant awards that have come from a wide variety of internal, regional, national, and industrial sources. Specifically, he has been involved with the following projects: load rating assessment of three concrete slab-span bridges over Shingle Creek, performance evaluation of reinforced concrete box culverts, load testing and structural analysis of the John A. Blatnik Bridge in Duluth, MN, understanding causes of concrete culvert pipe joint separation, deterioration of mixed reinforcement and fiber-reinforced concrete bridge decks, anchorage of post-installed epoxy-coated rebar using chemical adhesives, and bond strength of post-installed GFRP reinforcement in structural connections.
Dr. Dymond’s teaching and research have been recognized with the Gerald R. Seeley Early Career Faculty Award from the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE), T.Y. Lin Award from the American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE), Walter P. Moore Jr. Faculty Achievement Award from the American Concrete Institute (ACI), and Martin P. Korn Award from the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI).
Education
Ph.D. Structural Engineering, 2015, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
M.S. Structural Engineering, 2007, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA
B.S. Civil Engineering, 2006, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA
Work experience
2022 – Present, Associate Professor, Northern Arizona University
2021 – 2022, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota Duluth
2016 – 2021, Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota Duluth
2015, Part-Time Faculty, California State University Sacramento
2015 – 2016, Project Engineer, KPFF Consulting Engineers, Sacramento, CA
2008 – 2010, Research Associate, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA
2008, Structural Engineer II, AECOM, Roanoke, VA
Professional memberships
Member, American Society of Civil Engineers
Member, Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI)
Chair, American Concrete Institute (ACI) Committee S802 Teaching Methods and Educational Materials
Secretary, American Concrete Institute (ACI) Committee 342 Evaluation of Concrete Bridges and Bridge Elements
Voting Member, ACI Committees 343 Concrete Bridge Design, 123 Research and Current Developments, 445F Interface Shear, 423 Prestressed Concrete
