June 16, 2016
Stokes awarded alumni professorship
Robert Stokes, professor and department head of civil engineering, is the recipient of the Civil Engineering Alumni Professorship Honoring Dr. Robert Snell. The endowment was established by Douglas Smith, a 1971 graduate of Kansas State University in civil engineering, and his wife, Cynthia, Longmont, Colorado.
The professorship honors Snell, former professor and department head of civil engineering, as well as promotes recruitment and retention of the highest quality faculty for the department.
Stokes is director of the University Transportation Center and his research focuses on urban, rural and intercity transportation planning; highway design, planning and operations; traffic engineering; design and operation of turning lanes; traffic safety; and transit planning, design and operations. The work is often conducted in a multijurisdictional context, which requires coordinating efforts and priorities of various city, county and state agencies to develop workable solutions to real world transportation problems. He is the co-director the Kansas Department of Transportation and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Traffic Assistance Services for Kansas, or TASK, group.
His educational background includes a bachelor's degree in engineering from Antioch College, master's degrees in both civil engineering, and community and regional planning from Ohio State University, and a doctorate degree in urban and regional science from Texas A&M University.
A member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Stokes has been named a fellow of the organization as well as serving as past director of its Region 7. He also is a member and named fellow of the Institute of Transportation Engineers, and a past recipient of the U.S. Department of Transportation's Dwight David Eisenhower Faculty Fellowship.