Dr. Luis Amador

Assistant Professor

E-mail

Telephone: 514-848-2424 Ext 5783
Fax: 514-848-7965

Office:

1515 St. Catherine W. (map)
Rm: EV-6.139

Biography

Dr. Luis Amador joined the Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering as an Assistant Professor in 2010. He earned his Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering at the University of New Brunswick in 2010, a Masters in Business Administration in 2006 and two Bachelors; one in Civil Engineering (2002) and another one in Business Administration (1997) from Universidad Fidelitas in Costa Rica. Former Member of the Board of Directors of Costa Rica Roads Administration (CONAVI). Worked as Director of Engineering Services and Community Planning at the Urban Municipality of Kindersley in Saskatchewan, and as Director of Technical Studies for the Costa Rica Construction Association. He was a lecturer for about three years at Universidad Fidelitas (2002 to 2005). He also lectured at the University of New Brunswick (UNB) during fall 2008. His expertise is in the areas of Pavement Engineering and Transportation Asset Management. He also has professional experience in Structural Design, Policy Analysis and Municipal Engineering.

Research

• Pavement Engineering: Pervious Pavements, Chipsealed Roads, HMA, Airport Pavements, Low volume roads.
• Pavement Performance Modeling
• Road Safety and Highway Planning
• Land Use and Transport Modeling for Transportation Asset Management
• Road Management Systems: Soft-computing techniques for clustering homogeneous groups and learning treatment effectiveness
• Civil Infrastructure Management Systems: Spatial-Temporal Coordination of Activities and Re-optimization
• Optimization Techniques for Multi-objective Across-Assets Management Systems
• Bayesian Statistics and Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulation for Reliability-based performance modeling (safety, deterioration, mobility, accessibility)
• Policy Analysis: Funding Civil Infrastructure, Infrastructure and Economic Development, etcetera
• Incorporing Natural Hazard Vulnerability into Road Management Systems

Teaching

• CIVI 471 - Highway and Pavement Design
• CIVI 341 - Civil Engineering Systems
• CIVI 6451 - Pavement Design

Publications

Submitted articles

• Oum, N. and Amador, L. 2012. Social Cost for the Coordination of Investments in Infrastructure Management. Submitted for presentation and publication to the 91^st Annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board. Washington DC.
• Amador, L. and Mrawira. D. 2012. Measuring the Benefits of Integral Management of Road Networks: New Brunswick Highways, Bridges and Culverts. Submitted for presentation and publication to the 91^st Annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board. Washington DC.
• Amador, L, and Afghari, A. 2012. Lifecycle Optimization and Tradeoff Analysis among competing objectives for a road corridor. Submitted for presentation and publication to the 91^st Annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board. Washington DC.
• Heydari, M. and Amador, L. 2012. A fully Bayesian approach to Road Safety: applying Poisson and conjugated Poisson likelihoods with a relative risk assessment. Submitted for presentation and publication to the 91^st Annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board. Washington DC.
• Amador, L. and Afghari, A. 2012. Developing an initial road management system for optimizing pavement condition and road safety: case study of the Tanzania Road Network. Submitted for presentation and publication to the 91^st Annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board. Washington DC.
• Amador, L. 2012. Integral Infrastructure Management: Measuring Economic and Performance Benefits of Trade-off Analysis. Submitted to the Journal of Sustainable Cities and Society. Elseiver.
• Amin, M.S.R. and Amador, L. 2012. Behavior of Land prices in a satellite town of a Mega city: Case study of the Municipality of Savar. Submitted for publication in the Journal of Urban Planning and Development of the American Society of Civil Engineers. 
• Amin, M.S.R and Amador, L. 2011. Who makes inevitable conversion of the agricultural lands into urban uses at the peripheries of a Megacity?. To be presented in the Second International Conference of the Constructed Environment. Chicago, U.S.
• Amador, L. and Amin, M.S.R. 2011. Land use and transport modeling to support transportation asset management: case study of the new Brunswick road network and it`s regional interactions. To be presented in the joint 58th North America Regional Science Conference and Second Conference of the Regional Science of the Americas. Miami, FL.

Articles published in refereed journals

• Amador, L. and Magnuson, S. 2011. “Adjacency Modeling for the Coordination of Investments in Infrastructure Asset Management: Case Study of the Town of Kindersley”. In press, Transporation Research Record, Journal of the Transportation Research Board. Washington D.C., 2011.
• Amador L., Mrawira D. 2009. “Roads Performance Modeling & Management System from two condition data points: case study of Costa Rica”. ASCE, Journal of Transportation Engineering, Vol 135 No12. pp: 999-1007
• Amador, L. and Mrawira, D. 2011. “Capturing Variability in Pavement Performance Models from Sufficient Time-Series Predictors: A Case Study of the New Brunswick Road Network”. Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering, 38(2): 210–220 
• Amador, L. and Mrawira, D. 2011. “Practical Development of Bayesian Performance Deterioration Modeling in the presence of few time-series & predictors: A case study of the Costa Rica road network”. International Journal of Pavement Engineering. Volume 12, Issue 2 April 2011, pages 177 - 186

Refereed conference proceedings

• Amador, L. 2011. Relating Land Use and Transport modeling with transportation asset management. Proceedings of the 1st Congress of the Transportation and Development Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Chicago, U.S.
• Amador, L. and Mrawira, D. 2011. “Bayesian Regression in Deterioration Modeling: Revisiting the AASHO Road Test Rut Depth Model”. Proceedings of the 90th Annual Congress of the Transportation Research Board. Washington DC, 2011.

• Mrawira, D. Kachua, S., and Amador, L. 2010. “Across Asset Trade-off Analysis and Framework for Adjacency Consideration in Long-term Planning for Transportation Asset Management”. Proceedings of the 89th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board Washington. D.C.
• Amador, L. 2009. “Multilevel Bayesian Accident Prediction Modeling for Multi-objective Road Management Systems”. Proceedings of the XV Ibero-Latin American Asphalt Pavement Congress. Lisbon, Portugal.
• Mrawira D., Amador L. 2009. “Cross-Assets Trade-off Analysis: Why Are We Still Talking About It?". Proceedings of the 88th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board Washington. D.C.
• Mrawira D., Amador L.,2008. “Breaking the Silos in Asset Management: Comprehensive Optimization in Long-Term Planning over multiple asset types”. Proceedings of the 3rd European Pavement and Asset Management Conference. Lisbon, Portugal.
• Amador L., Mrawira D. 2008. “Asset Performance Modelling: What to do when you only have two condition data points”. Proceedings of the 87th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board Washington. D.C.
• Mrawira D., MacNaughton J., & Amador L.,2008. “Pushing the frontier of Asset Management: using trade-off analysis across asset-types to support agency’s budget exercise”. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Managing Public Assets. Calgary Alberta.
• Mrawira D., Amador L., Zhong M. 2007. “Application of GIS-T to Develop Asset Performance Modelling and Long Term Investment Planning for a Road Network”.  Proceedings of the XIV Ibero-American Asphalt Congress. Cuba.

Non-refereed publications

• Amador L. 2009. Development of an optimal management model of road infrastructure for Costa Rica based on two condition surveys (in Spanish). [online]. E-Magazine of the Association of Professionals in Economic Sciences of Costa Rica. 2nd Edition. Available from http://www.revistae-conomica.com/articulo.php?id=21   [cited August 21st 2009]
• Amador, L. 2009. Optimal Management of Infrastructure Assets: a challenge for progress (in Spanish) [online]. E-Magazine of the College of Professionals in Economic Science of Costa Rica. 1st Edition. Available from http://www.revistae-conomica.com/articulo.php?id=10, [cited August 21st 2009]
• Amador L. 2006. “Pay Factors based in the effectiveness of roads treatments” (in Spanish). Construction Magazine of Costa Rica, issue No. 104
• Amador L. 2005. “A good advance...but still way to go: Water Resources” (in Spanish). Construction Magazine of Costa Rica, issue No 92