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Under Burak Tanyu’s leadership, the Sustainable Geo Infrastructure (SGI) group takes their work beyond the laboratory and into the real world. Tanyu’s attention to quality assures that the SGI group gives George Mason a seat at the table when it comes to working with mission agencies and private entities. The team has designed and constructed an actual bridge, a roadway, and three full-scale test sites, translating their academic findings into practice. “I don’t believe in telling external sponsors what they should be working on; that’s not my role,” Tanyu said. “My role is to ask, ‘What keeps you awake at night? Is there something we can help with?’ and I remind my students: no matter what we do, we must do it at the highest possible quality.”
As an experimental researcher heavily relying on labs, he said that none of the current facilities existed when he started. When Tanyu joined George Mason in 2011, he built the geotechnical engineering program from the ground up. In his first three years at George Mason, he used his professional network and initiated his research using the laboratory spaces at the University of Maryland and the Catholic University of America. After the completion of the department’s John Toups teaching lab, he was allocated a small portion of that space to move his research to the university. All SGI laboratories are now located at the Krasnow Building. The halls of their floor are lined with posters highlighting their research.
To expand the SGI’s capabilities, Tanyu leveraged his industry experience and relationships, securing donations from private firms such as ECS Limited, Geokon, and Geocomp for equipment and data collection systems, contributions he remains deeply grateful for, as they made a significant difference in the group’s early years. Now fully equipped, the SGI group is dedicated to conducting sophisticated research to tackle challenges in geotransportation and geoenvironmental engineering. Tanyu’s work is consistently funded by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) and private entities. The group is also supported by federal agencies including the National Science Foundation, the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (the research arm of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies), the Environmental Protection Agency, and research foundations.
One of SGI’s notable projects is a roadway designed and constructed in Manassas as part of an ongoing partnership with VDOT. The project explores the methods developed in SGI’s labs for recycling the commonwealth’s 4.7 million tons of excess reclaimed road surface material. Quarries within Virginia and the Virginia Asphalt Association were integral in supporting the implementation of this project. The constructed roadway, now open to traffic, serves as a demonstration of how reclaimed asphalt can be used as an aggregate, reducing cost and environmental impact.
Through many projects, Tanyu and the SGI team exemplify how university research can directly address physical infrastructure challenges in the region and beyond. Their collaborations with public agencies and private industry create a path for innovations to move successfully beyond the lab and into practice.