The Center for Transportation Infrastructure Systems (CTIS) at The University of Texas at El Paso is pleased to welcome back Dr. Victor Garcia, who has joined as an Associate Professor of Research. His interest in transportation and pavement engineering began as a graduate student pursuing a master's degree that focused on improving the cracking characterization of asphalt concrete. As a graduate research assistant, he was exposed to multiple research projects sponsored by the Department of Transportation (DOT), which allowed him to witness how the United States invests significantly in transportation infrastructure.
In 2021, Dr. Garcia earned his Ph.D. in civil engineering from UTEP under the supervision of Dr. Soheil Nazarian. His dissertation, "New Generation of Performance-Engineered Asphalt Mixtures Based on Balanced Mix Design Concept," examined how asphalt mixtures can be designed around their expected performance in the field for Texas DOT. In 2018, during his doctoral studies, he was named the top national doctoral fellow of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship Program. He knew early in his academic career that he wanted to immerse himself in research and ultimately become a professor. His new appointment at UTEP and CTIS marks a return to the institution where that path began.
Dr. Garcia returns to UTEP after five years as a Research Civil Engineer with the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), where his work focused on airfield pavement evaluation, nondestructive testing technologies, and pavement recycling techniques. Garcia joined the ERDC's Airfields and Pavements Branch of the Geotechnical and Structures Laboratory in 2021. In this role, he conducted and consulted on projects for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), including the Army, Air Force, and Navy.
His research experience with ERDC started by contributing to a project that focused on enhancing the field testing techniques and performance evaluation of non-traditional airfield pavements. The DOD branches managed a large network of airfield pavements, from which a limited number of pavements are considered nontraditional because they may not meet current pavement design criteria. The project included field pavement evaluations, geotechnical site investigations accelerated pavement testing, and laboratory material characterization to gather sufficient pavement information that was transformed into new pavement performance models and evaluation criteria. Dr. Garcia commented "our ERDC team developed a new pavement evaluation methodology that will enable the tri-services to strategically operate cargo aircraft everywhere in support of military and civilian missions."
During his time at ERDC, Dr. Garcia executed more than $5 million in research funding, serving as Principal Investigator on seven projects and as Co-Principal Investigator on six. From his research at ERDC, he published about 10 technical reports and 16 scholarly publications. His research efforts and engineering contributions to the US Army and ERDC were recognized by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by receiving the 2023 "STEM Hero" award.
Mentoring has shaped Dr. Garcia's career as much as conducting research has. Around the time he completed his Ph.D., he became a research assistant and mentor of UTEP's Center for Research in Engineering and Technology Education (CREaTE), an experience that reinforced his philosophy of mentoring by helping him understand that not all students are the same and that every student has different mentoring needs. He also contributed to different research projects sponsored by the US Department of Education (DOEd) to empower undergraduate students to pursue STEM careers, create interdisciplinary research opportunities at the El Paso Community College, and develop modernized education models for engineering students.
Collectively, Dr. Garcia's passion for research and mentoring students is a significant part of what brought him back to UTEP. UTEP and CTIS offered a valuable opportunity to bring back some of the skills and experience he had gained during his short professional career. His goal is to be "a new but familiar faculty member" who prioritizes involving students in research, the classroom, and extracurricular activities. In his new role at UTEP, he aims to create research opportunities at the intersection of transportation, defense, and education, connecting the priorities of the U.S. DOT, DOD and DOEd.
