W. Griffin Sullivan in MDOT’s Materials Lab with a tool used to interface design and construction that was developed through the research presented in the awarded paper.Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT) engineer W. Griffin Sullivan is a co-winner of the Transportation Research Board’s (TRB) 2015 Best Practice Ready Paper Award for research on highway design and construction techniques.
TRB’s Design and Construction Group selected the paper detailing methods for improving highway base layer design and construction. The organization will present the award at its annual meeting next month.
“This prestigious award acknowledges the outstanding talent and skill of our employees working at MDOT,” says MDOT Executive Director Melinda McGrath. “I am very proud of Griffin and his colleagues for their work to improve infrastructure design and construction practices to create safer roads for the traveling public in Mississippi.”
Sullivan is the lead author on the paper and works in MDOT’s Central Materials Lab. Co-authors include Dr. Isaac L. Howard, associate professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department at Mississippi State University (MSU) and director of the university’s Construction Materials Research Center (CMRC), and MSU student Brennan Anderson.
“I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to work with a large number of high quality students on projects sponsored by agencies like MDOT that have a meaningful impact on Mississippi and the surrounding states,” Howard says. “This paper award is a testament to the quality of our students and the support MDOT provides for projects with an opportunity for a major impact.”
Sullivan has a master’s degree from MSU through the CEE department and is working part-time on his PhD in Civil Engineering from the university while working at MDOT. While at the MSU he served as a research assistant on a study funded by MDOT that became part of his thesis for the paper.
MDOT and MSU partner on many research projects via a partnership with the CMRC and CEE department. The agency estimates undergraduate students have worked more than 40,000 paid hours on projects in the past 10 years.
