Joseph Konieczny, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, was brought to the south to teach high school physics at Westlake High School by Teach for America in 2008. During the summers of 2009 and 2010 he participated in Georgia Tech's GIFT program in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering under the leadership of Dr. Michael Hunter and Ph.D. candidates Tom Wall and Dwayne Henclewood. The first summer in the program laid the foundation for a four week Transportation Engineering unit in Mr. Konieczny's Engineering Concepts class. This unit was a collaborative effort between Mr. Konieczny, Dr. Hunter, PhD students in the Civil Engineering department at GA Tech, and the Kimley-Horn and Associates (KHA) engineering firm. KSA representative Cristina Pastore (a former student of Dr. Hunter) introduced students to the field of transportation engineering and delivered them their first major project where the students were required to use data collected by KHA and create a traffic management plan for a school sporting event. Students were assessed by Dr. Hunter's office and KHA representatives and were presented with the official TMP proposed for the site by another KHA representative.
During the summer of 2009 rising Westlake High School seniors Abdul Leite and Joshua Sherman joined Mr. Konieczny in Dr. Hunter's lab. In their six week experience the students collected data for a five intersection corridor on 10th street near GA Tech and created a computer simulation model in order to compare coordinated versus uncoordinated signal timing. In January 2011 Abdul and Joshua submitted their summer research, titled "The Effect of Signal Timing Optimization on Traffic Flow", into the Greenbrier Mall science fair, which was a preliminary for the Fulton County science fair in February. The students placed first at Greenbrier in the category of Engineering and second in the category of Energy and Transportation at the Fulton County science fair. Joshua is senior in the Math and Science Magnet program at Westlake High School and is undecided about the field of engineering he would like to study in college. Abdul is also a senior in the Magnet program and would like to study systems engineering as it pertains to air traffic scheduling.
Congratulations to Mr. Konieczny and his students at Westlake High School on their accomplishments. Part of this program was sponsored by FHWA through a Garrett A. Morgran grant. Click here for more information.