Biography
Dr. Ruey Long (Kelvin) Cheu earned his Ph.D. degree in Transportation Systems Engineering at the University of California at Irvine in 1994. He was a tenured faculty member at the Department of Civil Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS) until 2006, when he joined The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). At UTEP, Dr. Cheu is a tenured full Professor with the Department of Civil Engineering. Dr. Cheu’s diverse expertise includes Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), traffic operations, highway geometric design and transportation security. He has received external research funding of more than $5 million (as the principal investigator). Arising from these research projects, he has published more than 80 papers in international peer reviewed journals, more than 100 papers in conferences, supported and graduated 10 Ph.D. students and more than 37 master students. The GoogleScholar ranks him the 17th most cited scholar in Transportation Engineering, with more than 4,200 citations and a h-index of 34 (August 28, 2019). When Dr. Cheu was in NUS, he started the first intelligent transportation systems research program in Southeast Asia. He was the first and only principal investigator of Honda’s carsharing project outside the University of California system. He also directed a research project funded by the Ministry of Defense, Singapore. His service to NUS included directing the dual master degree program in logistics and supply chain management with Georgia Institute of Technology, and the graduate diploma program in aviation management with the Singapore Aviation Academy. The UTEP community knows Dr. Kelvin Cheu as the pioneer of international education programs and interdisciplinary research in the College of Engineering, notably the dual master degree program with Czech Technical University, funded by U.S. Department of Education (the first transportation dual master program in U.S.) and the bi-national smart cities study abroad program with University of Guadalajara, Mexico. In 2015, he initiated the smart cities community, a campus wide inter-disciplinary research group consisting of more than 10 faculty members at UTEP. His research portfolio includes projects funded by Texas Department of Transportation, El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization, Federal Highway Administration and Department of Homeland Security. In 2016, Dr. Cheu was named a Fellow of American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) as “a pioneer in bringing artificial intelligence into the transportation engineering field”[1]. In the same year, he was appointed as the Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Transportation Science & Technology (published online by Elsevier). He was the first faculty member in the College of Engineering, and the second in UTEP appointed to the highest editorial leadership of a journal. In 2017, he becomes the Associate Director of two U.S. Department of Transportation’s Tier 1 University Transportation Centers. Although Dr. Cheu is a civil engineer, his works are recognized by his electrical and electronics engineering colleagues. In 2016, in recognition of his interdisciplinary contributions, he was elevated by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) to be its Senior Member[2]. He is a registered Professional Engineer licensed to practice in the State of Texas. [1] ASCE (www.asce.org) is the largest professional society of civil engineers in the world. It has more than 150,000 members from 177 countries and territories. ASCE Fellows have made celebrated contributions and developed creative solutions that change lives around the world. It is a prestigious honor held by top 3% of ASCE members. [2] IEEE (www.ieee.org) is the largest professional society of electrical and electronics engineers in the world. IEEE has more than 420,000 members in more than 160 countries. Only 10% of IEEE members earn the Senior grade.