UW Professor to Teach Student/Faculty Steel Bridge Live Lecture Series Feb. 23

Short-span bridges provide vital links in the nation’s infrastructure network. Yet, on average, there are 188 million trips taken across structurally deficient bridges each day.

Congress is currently working on a new multiyear, trillion-dollar surface transportation bill that could create new jobs and demand to rebuild America’s infrastructure. Students with knowledge of innovative solutions to fix the nation’s 56,000-plus structurally deficient bridges will be in vital demand.

To increase this knowledge, the Short Span Steel Bridge Alliance (SSSBA) is collaborating with the University of Wyoming, American Institute of Steel Construction and the National Steel Bridge Alliance to launch a free online six-part, live lecture educational series that will cover the many aspects of designing, fabricating and constructing steel bridges.

The lectures will be delivered by Michael Barker, a professor in the UW Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering, via the WyoLearn Learning Management System. Barker has more than 30 years of experience in bridge design and construction.

The “Steel Bridge Education Lectures: From Concept to Delivery” series will run Feb. 23-March 11. During those weeks, Zoom lectures will be provided Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5-6 p.m. The lectures can be viewed in real time and in a recorded version. Registration is open to students and faculty nationwide interested in steel bridges, Barker says. 

“The education series was taught three times last year, with over 500 enrolled,” Barker says.

Participants must complete and pass a quiz after each lecture to earn a certificate of completion at the end of the series, which can be used toward building their resumes and preparing them for jobs in the bridge industry. Many engineering programs do not offer courses on steel bridge design and construction, so these lectures provide a wide scope of learning opportunities typically unavailable to students.

To enroll in the lecture series, go to https://engtraining.catalog.instructure.com/courses/feb-march-2021-steel-bridge-design-from-concept-to-delivery.

For more information on the lecture series and course syllabus, go to https://mailchi.mp/steel/winter-2021-lectures-series or through the SSSBA website at www.shortspansteelbridges.org/.

The SSSBA is a group of bridge and buried soil steel structure industry leaders who have joined together to provide educational information on the design and construction of short-span steel bridges in installations up to 140 feet in length. 

For more information, email Barker at barker@uwyo.edu.