] Sherif S. Ishak, Ph.D., P.E., F.ASCE, an academic leader who has 30 years of experience in the field of transportation engineering, has been name a fellow by the ASCE Board of Direction.
Ishak’s emphases have been intelligent transportation systems, traffic operation and control, traffic safety, artificial intelligence and machine learning in transportation, and the emerging area of connected and automated vehicles.
He has served as a professor of civil engineering and associate dean for academic affairs at Louisiana State University, and as a professor and department chair at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and Old Dominion University. He also served as director of the Engineering Science program at Louisiana State University. Ishak spearheaded the establishment of a leadership academy sponsored by Chevron at Louisiana State University and supported the Study Abroad program for engineering students. He developed and executed strategic initiatives for increasing enrollment, retention, and graduation rates of engineering students.
He also led local and international education agreements to increase enrollment in various engineering degree programs. Ishak has authored/co-authored over 133 peer-reviewed conference and journal publications and served as PI or Co-PI for over 45 federal and state-funded projects. He has supervised more than 35 master’s and doctoral students. At all of these institutions Ishak supported and initiated programs to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Ishak founded the Intelligent Transportation Systems lab at Louisiana Transportation Research Center, and both the Louisiana State University and Old Dominion University driving simulator facilities. During his short tenure as chair of the department of civil engineering at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, he successfully established a long-term partnership with Alabama Department of Transportation that led to launching a new regional traffic management center for the North Alabama region to support research needs and offer undergraduate and graduate students experience through internship opportunities.
Among his leadership roles, Ishak chaired for six years the Transportation Research Board Standing Committee on Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Computing Applications, which promotes and advances interdisciplinary research at the intersection of the fields of transportation engineering and computer science and information technology. Under his leadership, the committee tripled the number of sponsored/co-sponsored sessions at the annual TRB meeting and other TRB-sponsored events, developed a Machine Learning Primer, promoted collaboration with other committees, increased diversity in the committee membership, and reinforced a collaborative leadership environment in the decision-making process and development of the triennial strategic planning and annual action plans.
Ishak is also a member of the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) panel for maintaining and executing a research agenda for the Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAV) roadmap, and serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Transportation Research Record and the Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering. He received the Durkee Engineering Foundation award at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and the Tiger Athletic Foundation Award and the research and service awards at Louisiana State University. He is a 2015 fellow of the highly competitive and prestigious Southeastern Conference academic leadership development program.
