Many of the faculty members in the consortium have achieved national and international recognition for their work. Given the members’ expertise, C2M2 is well positioned to build upon existing programs within the partner universities in collaboration with public and private industry partners to develop leaders within the transportation engineering community. C2M2 currently trains undergraduate and graduate students, and provides research opportunities to junior faculty with the goal of investing in the future of transportation research. Our Center Director, Dr. Mashrur (Ronnie) Chowdhury, is adept at such training, having received the “Faculty Mentoring Award” for outstanding mentoring of junior faculty members at Clemson University. He leads senior faculty members in the effort to mentor one or more junior faculty. Our center will also organize a leadership workshop during the C2M2 annual meeting where junior faculty and students will learn strategic planning, team building, scholarship, professional service, and decision-making from senior faculty members. We have already seen results from these initiatives, with an increase in research proposals from junior faculty members from our affiliated institutions, and an increase in student authored publications, posters, and presentations at industry conferences.
For a list of some of our previous Leadership activities check here. Or, see Dr. Chowdhury’s latest talk at the 2019 ITE Leadership Summit.
Dr. Mashrur “Ronnie” Chowdhury, director of the C2M2, was invited to give the closing talk at the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Southern District 2019 – Student Leadership Summit, which took place February 22-24, 2019 in Clemson, South Carolina. Dr. Chowdhury’s talk was titled “An Exciting Career in Future Transportation Technologies,” and focused on Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) for smart cities, smart technologies, and how they connect the physical and cyber worlds for a smarter, more efficient future. Dr. Chowdhury shared his introduction related to CPS and the beginning of his engineering career with around 70 attendees, from throughout the Southern District. He also discussed the growing need for engineers with experience working with CPS for smart cities, smart technology, and the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), and the leadership opportunities that this need presents to students at the forefront of these systems.