Dr. Kari (Edison) Watkins (CE ’97) thinks it might be a good thing for Americans to cool down their love affair with the automobile. Her research promises to make that separation a little less painful.
“A lot of people think of public transportation as a stinky old bus that you have to wait for,” says Watkins, an assistant professor of civil engineering whose work has focused on collective transit, alternative transportation, and real-time user information software.
"But if the service respects me, by being a nice, frequent, on-time vehicle, people change their attitude.”
When faculty, students, and staff return to the Mason Building this summer, they won't have to worry about moisture damage if they lay a book down near one of the more than 300 windows that line the 90,000 square-foot structure.
That's because the Mason Building is getting an $800,000 window makeover, thanks to a recent decision by the Institute and the State of Georgia to fund the much-needed improvement.