Global Link – International Activities
Fall 2024
Incoming India Section president heads to ASCE for training, leaders meeting
At ASCE headquarters, incoming India Section President Har Amrit Singh Sandhu, left, briefs incoming ASCE 2025 President-elect Marsha Anderson Bomar, right, and ASCE staff leaders, including Executive Director Tom Smith, second left.
India Section-Northern Region President Har Amrit Singh Sandhu traveled to ASCE’s U.S. headquarters for in-person leadership training at the 2024 Presidents and Governors Forum ahead of his advancing to India Section president and held a separate meeting with ASCE leadership on section plans, the state of civil engineering in India, and ways that might affect ASCE's substantial membership there.
The incoming president was eager to brief leaders on a major conference the Northern Region is planning for early February 2025. The ASCE International Conference on Challenges and Innovations for Sustainable Smart Cities, known as CISSC 2025, will take place in Chandigarh, the shared capital of the states of Punjab and Haryana.
3 ASCE members receive Region 10 Distinguished Service Medal Awards
Congratulations to the 2024 Region 10 Distinguished Service Medal Awards recipients, given for exemplary service to ASCE’s international sections and/or groups or to ASCE. The sixth-year honorees of the award are:
- Mohammad AlHamaydeh, Ph.D., P.E., F.SEI, M.ASCE,
- Lin-Hai Han, Ph.D., M.ASCE
- April Jane Lander, MEM, JP, ENV SP, A.M.ASCE
In Santiago, ASCE and the Institute of Engineers of Chile sign an agreement of cooperation
ASCE 2024 President-Elect Feniosky Peña-Mora signs the agreement as Institute of Engineers of Chile President Juan Carlos Barros awaits his opportunity.
ASCE has a new sister society in Latin America with the signing of an agreement of cooperation with the Instituto de Ingenieros de Chile, or the Institute of Engineers of Chile. IING has a history representing that nation’s engineers almost as long as ASCE’s, as it was founded in 1888. ASCE 2024 President-Elect Feniosky Peña-Mora visited IING headquarters in Santiago to sign the agreement. “I had a very productive and fruitful conversation,” Peña-Mora said, “We discussed areas for collaboration in the areas of resiliency, climate risks, and sustainability.”
Pan-American and Portugal engineering societies’ leaders bond with ASCE
President of the Unión Panamericana de Asociaciones de Ingenieros Aridai (Ari) Herrera, an ASCE member, and Fernando de Almeida Santos, president of the Ordem dos Engenheiros, Portugal’s order of engineers, visited ASCE headquarters together in August for productive conversations on activities their groups are working on, and to learn of relevant ASCE programs and resources of potential help. De Almeida Santos and ASCE staff discussed areas of possible collaboration under the agreement of cooperation between OE and ASCE reached last year. ASCE and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers are the U.S. representatives in UPADI, the Pan American Union of Engineering Societies, with 21 member societies representing 19 North, Central, and South American countries.
Kazakhstan seismologists turn to ASCE for guidance post-earthquakes
By arrangement with the U.S. State Department, a delegation of seismologists and related specialists from the government of Kazakhstan recently traveled across the United States on a mission to learn how they can expand their technical capacity around seismic hazard assessments, monitoring, and scientific research, including a briefing with ASCE.
The world’s ninth largest country by area with 20 million citizens, Kazakhstan is recovering from two recent devastating earthquakes in Almaty, its largest city. ASCE Executive Director Tom Smith led staff in briefing the guests on how ASCE standards and U.S. national building codes enhance structures’ seismic resiliency, the federal government’s National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program, and other ways ASCE extends support internationally.
Path opened to let US, UK engineers practice in each other’s countries
The U.S.-based National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying and its British counterpart, the Engineering Council–UK, have signed a mutual recognition agreement to expand licensure and other opportunities for U.S. and British engineers and firms to work in each other’s lands without compromising standards. The pact is expected to help address workforce challenges in each country and heighten engineering standards internationally. Read details in Civil Engineering Source.
NCEES is ASCE’s exclusive National Education Sponsor, providing support for student-oriented Society initiatives including serving as title sponsor of the Cities of the Future Campus Screening program for ASCE student chapters, lending support to the ASCE Student Ambassador program, and sponsoring 22 spring student symposia, reaching more than 9,500 people. Explore this partnership.
Enjoy free access to a wide diversity of research in ASCE OPEN
Launched in 2023 as a Gold Open Access journal, ASCE OPEN: Multidisciplinary Journal of Civil Engineering accepts and publishes submissions across the civil engineering spectrum. Its goal is nothing less than to present an all-encompassing civil engineering perspective on the built and natural environment.
One paper’s author can’t speak highly enough. “I cannot think of another journal that brings these truly interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary perspectives, all looking at challenges related to civil engineering,” Sriram Narasimhan, Ph.D., P.Eng, F.ASCE, said in an interview with Civil Engineering Source. “This journal has really exceeded my expectations – looking at just the quality and the diversity of topics that are getting submitted.” Read ASCE OPEN and bookmark it at ascelibrary.org/journal/aomjah.
Get ethical questions answered at a new ASCE resource
Not all decisions based on our sense of professional integrity are easy. What would be the most ethical choice when situations arise that call for a compromise? The ASCE website has launched a new area with potential answers to such difficult ethical questions. A new archive of nearly 20 years of A Question of Ethics columns from Civil Engineering magazine covers virtually every topic and is organized as such. They are written by ASCE General Counsel Tara Hoke. Some are by Executive Director Tom Smith from his tenure as ASCE's counsel. The archive is worth saving to your bookmarks to return to. Find it at asce.org/career-growth/ethics/question-of-ethics.
Read free Editor’s Choice papers from ASCE journals, updated every month
Enjoy some of the latest research and discoveries in civil engineering, many that can be applied to your work, with a selection of papers from the latest issues of ASCE’s technical journals. The chief editors of each of ASCE’s dozens of journals recommend and open one paper free from each new issue, made available online to registered ASCE Library users for the length of the journal issue (one to four months depending on frequency.) Registration is free. Choose now from the current selection in the Editor’s Choice Collection, and return monthly for new offerings.
UPCOMING EVENTS
1st International Conference on Civil and Environmental Engineering for Resilient, Smart and Sustainable Solutions
Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia
Nov. 3-5
Second International Conference in Civil Engineering for a Sustainable Planet (ICCESP 2024)
Co-sponsor ASCE India Section, Southern Region
Kazhakuttom, Thiruvananthapuram, India
Dec. 6-8
International Perspectives in Water and Environment (IPWE) Conference
Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India
Jan. 8-10, 2025
ASCE International Conference on Challenges and Innovations for Sustainable Smart Cities (CISSC 2025)
Chandigarh, India
Feb. 7-9, 2025
Submit your item for a future Global Link
Do you have news or an announcement for ASCE international members that might be worthy of an item in Global Link? Submit it to Civil Engineering Source associate editor John Marston at jmarston@asce.org.