AACE Bulletin
Bulletin Section News for March 2023
AACE International sections from around the world are encouraged to submit write-ups and photos of their monthly section meetings and other activities. For the March 2023 Source, submissions were received from the British Columbia and Seattle Sections.
British Columbia Section
Izad Goftar
The British Columbia Section in Region 1 is announcing and introducing members of its current year Section Board of Directors. In this report, we introduce the Section’s Director of Technology, Izad Goftar. He has a Ph.D. and a master’s degree in project management, as well as a Civil Engineering degree. He currently works as the Scheduling and Costing Team Lead at BC Hydro. Izad worked in different roles such as project manager, and project control manager in several companies and various projects such as mining, hydro, oil and gas projects.
Seattle Section
On March 9, the AACE Seattle Section welcomed back its 2020-2022 President, Kamran Hazini, and his colleague, Craig DeLalla, for a spectacular live event in Seattle.
Deputy Director of Risk Engineering Kamran Hazini and Director of Systems Engineering and Integration Craig DeLalla are both from Sound Transit. Their presentation topic was: Sound Transits New Developed Programmatic Risk Assessment Process. The presentation covered the quantitative risk assessment initiative developed and executed at Sound Transit. This new approach adds an analysis of program risks to quantify the cascading impacts of concurrent delivery of the East Link, Downtown Redmond Link, Lynnwood Link, and Federal Way Link Extension projects. These highly anticipated Light Rail Link extension projects are of vital importance to Seattle and its greater populations.
The presentation was both relevant and insightful as to how rolling out multiple mega projects at the same time comes to fruition successfully. This of course cannot be completed without comprehensive risk assessment, as was beautifully explained during the live event. A special thanks to our past Seattle Section President Kamran Hazini and his college Craig DeLalla for coming back in style and capturing the audience with an amazing presentation.
Montreal Section
Montreal Section’s 3+1 Construction Elevator Pitch Competition 2023
Shown, during a round of discussion between judges and contestants, from left to right are Tala Harb, a project control analyst at WSP; Kristaps Thompson, a senior associate consultant at HKA; Po-Han Chen, professor of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering at Concordia University; Didier Chung Foo, a senior cost consultant at Turner & Townsend; John Prizio, a senior project controls manager from HATCH; and Delaram Sadeghi, a Montreal Section Student Committee volunteer.
Shown above are Montreal Section board members, judges, and volunteers of the Montreal Section Student Committee. Shown seated from left to right are Azadeh Soofypour, Montreal Section Student Committee volunteer; Shrouk Gharib, Student Committee public relations director; Dena Shamsollahi, Student Committee president; Julia Fernandez, Student Committee volunteer; Delaram Sadeghi, Student Committee volunteer; Abdelhady Omar, Student Committee vice president and financial director. Shown standing from left to right are Jideobi Obiefuna, Student Committee volunteer; Didier Chung Foo, a senior cost consultant at Turner & Townsend; Tala Harb, a project control analyst at WSP; John Prizio, a senior project controls manager from HATCH; Po-Han Chen, professor of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering at Concordia University; Kristaps Thompson, a senior associate consultant at HKA; Les McMullan, Global Director Project Controls at Hatch and an AACE International member; Araham Martinez, Student Committee director of planning; Amr Allam, Student Committee director of operations.
Shown above are some of the live studio audience attendees for the thesis presentations.
The AACE International Montreal Section and the Centre for Innovation in Construction and Infrastructure (CICIEM) at Concordia University are pleased to announce another successful annual event entitled “AACE 3+1 Construction Elevator Pitch Competition”. This special event was started in 2019 by the Montreal Section wherein graduate students at the master’s and Ph.D. levels, from different universities around the world, presented their thesis as a short ‘elevator pitch’ to a panel of judges from both academia and industry. This competition is an opportunity to test the graduate students’ skills as they present their thesis topics in four minutes in an engaging, concise, and convincing way, followed by answering questions from the panel of judges.
This year, ten finalists were selected to present their work from a pool of around 30 received abstracts from top universities in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, to name a few, Concordia University, École de technologie supérieure (ETS), University of British Columbia (UBC), Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Hawaii, University of Twente (UT), University Malaysia Pahang, and the American University in Cairo.
The event, which was hosted by the Montreal Section and CICIEM Research Center, featured presentations in three main streams: Construction Projects Planning & Control, ICT and AI in Construction, and Occupational Health and Safety. Participants were challenged to present their thesis topics in four minutes in front of judges and an audience. The event was sponsored by, HATCH, HKA, WSP, Turner & Townsend, and the Montreal Section.
The competition was on February 14, at Concordia 4th space center and live streamed on both Zoom and YouTube. The judges of the competition joined in person while the contestants joined online to present their research. The judges included Kristaps Thompson, Senior Associate Consultant at HKA, Didier Chung Foo, Senior Cost Consultant at Turner & Townsend, Po-Han Chen, Professor of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering at Concordia University, John Prizio, senior project controls manager from HATCH, and Tala Harb, Project Control Analyst at WSP.
The competition yielded the top three winners and four additional acknowledgments., with six being chosen by the judges and one by the audience. Ahmed Zalook, a PhD student at Concordia University, was the first-place winner of the competition, and he also received the audience award along with another contestant. His research, titled “Automated master planning and scheduling system in panelized homes supply chain,” impressed both the judges and the audience. The second-place winner of the competition was Malcolm Dunson-Todd M.Sc. student at Concordia University, His research, titled “Evaluating Occupational Exoskeleton Efficacy in Construction: Towards Guidelines for the Construction Industry” and Kyeongsuk Lee, Ph.D. Student, Purdue University was selected as a third-place winner, his research, titled “Understanding the role of cognitive failures and anticipatory cues in worker safety performance: toward AI-Informed personalized safety training using multi-modal neuro-psychophysiological responses”. The top three were invited to join a future Montreal Section event to further discuss their projects.
An additional four acknowledgements were made including Austin D McClymonds on “Supporting the Information Exchange Between a BIM model and a Robot Utilizing Parametric Modeling” from Pennsylvania State University, Amir Sanatgar on “Applying Symbolic and Statistical AI for Developing Knowledge Management System in AEC Projects” from Concordia University, Mohamed Sherif on “Automating and optimizing construction design process using computational analysis” from the University of Hawaii and the audience selection: Saman Davari on “An investigation of the coupling of physical and digital assets and resources across lifecycle stages in the built environment” from ETS university.
Thanks to AACE International members and Concordia faculty members, Dr. Osama Moselhi and Dr. Mazdak Nik Bakht, who spoke at the event, and to Les McMullan, FAACE, from Hatch who commended the presenters on their presentations and diversity of subjects, and spoke about the importance of research and innovation, propelling us into an exciting future. Les also gave a short history of AACE International and the Montreal Section and the many benefits of being part of a professional association.
Special thanks to Dena Shamsollahi, Abdelhady Omar, Araham Martinez, Shrouk Gharib and Amr Allam of the Student Committee for another outstanding job organizing, coordinating, and providing publicity. Join us next year for another edition of this premier event.