Short Courses
Summary
Smart Rivers 2025 will kick off with an opportunity to dive deep on a topic of your choosing. Half-day short courses, scheduled for either the morning or afternoon, will be offered on Monday, 8 September. Presented by experts in the field, these courses offer an excellent opportunity to learn, grow, and build your network in your field.
Morning Course
The morning course will be held between 8:30am – 12:00pm CT on Monday, 8 September. Review the information below to read a brief description of the course and its instructors.
The planning and design of a navigation lock is a complex endeavour and involves multi-inputs, disciplines, and considerable time. Design is a complex, iterative process involving trade-offs with the objective of providing a safe economical project that meets the requirements of owners, users, and other stakeholders. The information shared cannot be achieved by any amount of research and development effort; rather, it is based on real world navigation experiences. This course will serve as a valuable resource to efficiently design, construct, and operate a navigation lock.
Who should attend:
This course will provide state-of-the-art knowledge that is applicable for navigation lock designers, engineers, operators, and authorities to draw on for infrastructure design, maintenance, and inspection.
Instructors:
- John Clarkson | U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Ret.)
- Erwin Pechtold | Rijkswaterstaat
- David Monfort | Bureau Greisch
- Sebastian Roux | Compagnie Nationale du Rhône
- Timothy Paulus | U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
- Travis Adams | U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
- Eric Johnson | U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
- Charlie Thomason | U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Afternoon Courses
Afternoon courses will be held between 1:00pm – 4:30pm CT on Monday, 8 September. Click through the titles below to read a brief description of each course and its instructors.
Hydraulic composite structures manufactured using primarily glass fabrics and vinyl ester resins are competitive on economic first cost with their steel counterparts, but do not suffer the same long-term degradation mechanisms in immersion service. A few technical barriers remain that inhibit widespread implementation of composites in marine infrastructure. This course provides a venue for participants to learn about, discuss, and get hands-on exposure to the use of composites for waterborne transportation infrastructure.
Who should attend:
Students, designers, high-level decisionmakers, and other industry experts will find this course (and the accompanying hands-on knowledge of composite structures) particularly rewarding.
Instructors:
- Hota GangaRao | West Virginia University
- Ray Liang | West Virginia University
- Philippe Rigo | Université de Liège
- Pete Stynoski | U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center
- Eric Johnson | U.S. Army Inland Navigation Design Center
- Tom Less | Woolpert, Inc.
Sustainable development of infrastructure systems is an emerging priority worldwide, and nature-based solutions are increasingly applied in navigable waterways to meet infrastructure needs as well as produce social and environmental benefits. This short course will cover how science-based guidance can inform decisions about waterborne infrastructure projects for two common areas of practice: sustainable sediment management and technical-biological bank protection. Participants will learn about the broader context for sustainable waterway management as well as technical guidance for executing these two types of nature-based solutions.
Instructors:
- Burton Suedel | U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center
- Calvin Creech | U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
- Chris Haring | U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center
- Kyle McKay | Woolpert, Inc.