The Center for Innovative Grouting Materials & Technology (CIGMAT) will hold its annual conference this Friday, March 6 at the UH Hilton. The theme of this year’s conference will be “Infrastructures, Energy, Geotechnical, Flooding and Sustainability Issues in Houston & Other Major Cities.”
Hundreds of leading industry professionals, researchers and government policymakers from across the country will come together at the conference to discuss the most pressing current challenges facing the construction, maintenance and sustainability of various civil infrastructures in the Houston region and beyond. Energy production and related issues will also be discussed.
The one-day conference will also include presentations on current projects and proposed projects that specifically address challenges for the region’s infrastructure and energy production needs.
Bill Brudnick, director of planning at TxDOT, will be the conference’s keynote speaker. Other speakers include Dale Rudick, director of the City of Houston’s Public Works and Engineering Department; Jeffrey Haby, director of sewer system improvement for the San Antonio Water System (SAWS); Ivan Langford, director of the Gulf Coast Water Authority; Mike Talbott, director of the Harris County Flood Control District; Diane Lowery-Binnie, assistant director of the Street & Drainage Division of the City of Houston; and Mark Loethen, deputy director of the Planning & Development Services Division of the City of Houston.
Cumaraswamy “Vipu” Vipulanandan, professor of civil engineering at the Cullen College, is the director of CIGMAT and a leading expert in the field of smart materials. Over the past three years, Vipu and his colleagues at CIGMAT have received more than $3 million in funding from the non-profit Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America, (RPSEA), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and oil field services firm Baker Hughes to develop new types of cementing and drilling materials for use in oil rig operations. Such materials could also be used to increase the resilience and sustainability of aging infrastructures.
Registration for the conference costs $140 for the general public and $75 for students.
To view the brochure for the 2015 CIGMAT conference, please visit www.cigmat.cive.uh.edu/events/cigmat-2015-conference-brochure.
For more information and to register for the 2015 CIGMAT conference, please visit www.cigmat.cive.uh.edu.