Team - Digital and Robotic Construction

Director

Zhenhua Zhu, Ph.D. P.Eng.
Mortenson Assistant Professor

Dr. Zhu received his Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering in 2002 and Master's degree in Computer Science and Technology in 2006. Both are from Zhejiang University, China. In 2011, he obtained his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, and then worked in Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, as Assistant Professor from 2011 to 2016 and Associate Professor from 2016 to 2019. Dr. Zhu is a registered Professional Engineer in the Province of Ontario, Canada. His research interests include visual sensing and analysis in construction, digital modeling, construction automation and robotics. His work has been recognized with several awards and honors, including the Best Paper Award at the Construction Research Congress in 2024 and 2009 and the ASCE Collingwood Prize in 2013.

Current Researchers and Students

Ph.D. Students

Wei Han, Ph.D. Student

Mr. Han is expected to complete his Ph.D. in 2025. His research is to study the impact of drone-induced distractions on working safety at heights.

Liqun Xu, Ph.D. Student

Mr. Xu is expected to complete his Ph.D. in 2026. He is currently working on physics-based modeling of construction equipment through data fusion.

Yujie Ding, Ph.D. Student

Ms. Ding is expected to complete her Ph.D. in 2028. She is currently working on camera-based weight estimation for the prevention of overloading.

Former Members at UW-Madison

Ph.D. Student

Xin Wang, Ph.D.
Current Position: Postdoctoral Researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO.

Dr. Wang defended his thesis in May 2024. His doctoral research focused on context-aware worker intent interpretation for human-robot collaboration in construction.

Master's Thesis Student

Sean Tyler Bennett (co-supervised with Prof. Peter Adamczyk)
Current Position: Embedded Systems Software Developer at 2G Engineering, Sun Prairie, WI.

Mr. Bennett completed his Masters' degree in 2023 and joined 2D Engineering as an embedded systems software developer. His research focused on investigating the biomechanical effects of wearing exoskeletons during construction activities.

Undergraduate Research Students

Gene Tanchanpongs (05/2024 - 08/2024)

Mr. Tanchanpongs is expected to receive his Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering. He is a skilled modeler.

Yanjie Ma (01/2022 - 05/2022)

Mr. Ma received his Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering. He is a skilled data analyst, proficient in Excel.

Han Wang (01/2019 - 05/2019)

Mr. Wang received his Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering. He is a skilled programmer in computer vision.

Parker Thomas Schroeder (01/2019 - 05/2019)

Mr. Schroeder received his Bachelor's degrees in Computer Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 2021. He is an avid programmer in robotics fields and served as Vice President in Wisconsin Robotics.

Former Members at Concordia

Ph.D. Students

Chen Chen, Ph.D.
Current Position: Lecturer at Zhejiang University of Science and Technology, China

Dr. Chen completed her PhD from Concordia University in 2021 and joined Zhejiang University of Science and Technology in China as Lecturer. Her doctoral research focused on video-based construction productivity analysis.

Xiaoning Ren, Ph.D.
Current Position: Project Manager at Country Garden, China

Dr. Ren completed his PhD from Concordia University in 2018 and joined Country Garden through its "Global Future Leader" recruitment project. His doctoral research focused on monitoring, visualization and assessment of air pollutant emissions on construction sites with Internet of Things (IoT) sensors. His work was awarded a winning prize in the 13th Chinese Students Innovation and Entrepreneurship Cpmpetition.

Thikra Dawood, Ph.D.
Current Position: Postdoctoral Research Associate at Purdue University

Dr. Dawood completed her PhD from Concordia University in 2018 and joined the School of Construction Management at Purdue University as Post-Doctoral Research Associate. Her doctoral research focused on the integrated condition assessment of subway networks using Computer Vision and Nondestructive Evaluation techniques.

Mohammad Soltani, Ph.D., PMP.
Current Position: Principal Machine Learning Scientist at Indus.ai

Dr. Soltani completed his PhD from Concordia University in 2017 and joined Indus.ai as Machine Learning Scientist. His doctoral research focused on the fusion of Computer Vision and Real-Time Location System (RTLS) data to estimate the excavator pose for monitoring its safety.

Valeh Moayeri, Ph.D.
Current Position: Change Management Specialist

Dr. Moayeri completed her PhD from Concordia University in 2017. Her doctoral research focused on managing design changes in construction projects using Building Information Modeling (BIM) techniques.

Elie Otayek, Ph.D.
Current Position: Head of Department of Civil Engineering at Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Beirut

Dr. Otayek completed his PhD from Concordia University in 2017. His doctoral research focused on developing an integrated decision support system for bridge type selection at the conceptual design stage.

Master's Thesis Students

Yusheng Huang

Mr. Huang completed his Masters' degree from Concordia University in 2020 and decided to pursue his Ph.D. in Building Engineering at Concordia University. His research was on the use of bluetooth low energy real-time location systems to provide proximity safety and speeding alerts to workers on construction sites.

Mohammad Akbarzadeh

Mr. Akbarzadehcompleted his Masters' degree from Concordia University in 2020 and worked as a full-stack developer. His research was on vision-based personal protective equipment (PPE) detection and construction worker localization to enhance site safety.

Amr Amer

Mr. Amer completed her Masters' degree from Concordia University in 2020 and joined Muraflex as construction cost estimator. Her research was on the automated segmentation and 3D reconstruction of structural elements in indoor environments.

Wenjing Chu

Ms. Chu completed her Masters' degree from Concordia University in 2018 and decided to pursue her PhD in Building Engineering at Concordia University. Her master's research focused on the 3D human body reconstruction for the ergonomic analysis of worker postures in modular construction workshops.

Bingfei Zhang

Mr. Zhang completed his Masters' degree from Concordia University in 2018 and decied to get his second Master's degree in Computer Software Engineering at UC Irvine. His research was on the vision-based detection and localization of fall accidents on construction sites.

Bo Xiao

Mr. Xiao completed his Masters' degree from Concordia University in 2017 and decided to pursue his PhD in Civil Engineering at the University of Alberta. His master's research focused on comparing the performance of two-dimensional (2D) visual trackers in construction scenarios.

Ghassan Al-Lafi

Mr. Al-Lafi completed his Masters' degree from Concordia University in 2017 and joined Alongi Ebenisterie et CG Inc. as Project Coordinator. His research was on the 3D thermal modeling of built environments with visual and infrared sensing.

Wael El-Hassan

Mr. EI-Hassan completed his Masters' degree from Concordia University in 2016 and joined QDVC, Doha, Qatar, as Site Engineer. His research was on modeling the 3D geometry of built environments with unmanned aerial vehicle systems.

Nehad El-Safty

Ms. El-Safty completed her Masters' degree from Concordia University in 2015 and joined Investors Group Inc. as Financial Advisor. Her research focused on the automatic hardhat wearing detection to enhance construction site safety.

Elizabeth Guzmán

Ms. Guzmán completed her Masters' degree from Concordia University in 2014 and joined eXplorance® Inc. as Professional Services Consultant. Her research was on improving the interoperability between building design and building performance analysis models.

Humaira Tajeen

Ms. Tajeen completed her Masters' degree from Concordia University in 2013. Her research was on the image dataset development for evaluating construction equipment recognition performance.