DATE: April 27, 2009

CONTACT: Wayne Sarasua, 864-656-3318
sarasua@clemson.edu

WRITER: Susan Polowczuk, 864-656-2063
spolowc@clemson.edu

Clemson students are Traffic Bowl champs for the fourth year in a row

CLEMSON — For the fourth year in a row, members of the Clemson University chapter of the Institute of Transportation Engineers are Traffic Bowl winners. They represented South Carolina and competed at the Southern District ITE Annual Meeting in Birmingham, Ala. Eight other university teams participated in the “Jeopardy” style competition known as the William H. Temple Scholarship Challenge that tests their road engineering mettle.

To bring home first prize and a $3,000 scholarship, the students defeated other teams from Virginia, (Virginia Tech) and Alabama (Auburn) in the preliminary round and Kentucky and Tennessee in the final round. Graduate students Vijay Bendigieri, Johnatan Dillon and Gabe Dobbs represented the Clemson team. Four hundred transportation professionals attended the conference.

For the sixth year in a row, Clemson also took home the Southern District ITE Outstanding Student Chapter Award. Twenty-five schools with ITE Student Chapters are in the Southern district. Clemson now is in the running for the International ITE Student Chapter Award. The award is based on all the activities of the chapter for the previous year.

Associate professor of civil engineering Wayne Sarasua and assistant professor of civil engineering Jennifer Ogle are advisers to the organization. The Clemson student chapter has more than 20 members from a variety of majors.

The Institute of Transportation Engineers is a professional society of transportation engineers, planners and other professionals in more than 70 countries. The goal of the Clemson student chapter is to introduce students to the transportation profession and supplement their classroom and laboratory experiences.