The chair of civil and environmental engineering has been honoured for his significant contributions to the construction industry.
Carl Haas received the Construction Industry Institue's (CII) 2021 James B. Porter, Jr. Award for Technology Leadership in recognition of his work to advance innovation in the capital projects industry.
He is described by CII as a dedicated educator and researcher who has “pursued how technology could improve construction projects, especially in the areas of technology, automation and robotics.”
By using 3D imaging and automated sensing algorithms, Haas created digital twins of constructed facilities.
He also developed radio-frequency identification tags and algorithms to locate items on a construction site quickly, reducing the hours previously wasted trying to locate construction materials. Today, construction companies use commercialized versions of his tools to automate their processes and efficiently track the flow of materials.
Carl Haas is the recipient of the 2021 James B. Porter, Jr. Award for Technology Leadership
Haas has been a principal investigator on nearly a dozen CII research projects since the early 1990s. Most of the research focused on the intersection of technology and work processes to improve project safety and performance.
A graduate of Waterloo's systems design engineering undergraduate program, Haas returned to Waterloo Engineering as a civil and environmental professor in 2005. Prior to that, he taught and conducted research at The University of Texas at Austin for 14 years.
Based at The University of Texas at Austin, CII is a consortium of more than 140 leading owner, engineering-contractor and supplier firms from both the public and private sectors. The organization introduced the James B. Porter, Jr. Award for Technology Leadership in 2007 as a tribute to James Porter, who was instrumental in establishing Fiatech.