ASCE has honored Y. Richard Kim, Ph.D., P.E., F.ASCE, with the 2020 Francis C. Turner Award for his extraordinary contribution to the fundamental characterization of transportation materials and its application to mechanistic pavement analysis and design.
Kim is one of the most respected pavement engineers in the nation. His research interests are in the areas of pavement mechanics, material characterization and asphalt concrete behavior modeling. He has done landmark research in continuum mechanics, fracture mechanics and constitutive modeling of asphaltic materials and has worked on its implementation in the mechanistic analysis of pavements.
He has supervised numerous M.S. and Ph.D. students, and is the author of over 200 refereed journal papers in his field. Kim is an organized and effective researcher who takes development initiatives to the next level. The pavements community has been waiting decades for performance-related specifications. It is coming within reach with Kim’s work.
He is currently the president of the Korean-American Society of Civil and Environmental Engineers.
The lectureship was established by the Transportation and Development Institute (formerly the Highway and Urban Transportation Divisions) of the Society by the solicitation of gifts from the many friends and admirers of Francis C. Turner, Hon.M.ASCE, former chief engineer of the Bureau of Public Roads, and retired Federal Highway Administrator.
