Kevin Heaslip

Director of the Center for Transportation Research and Professor

Biography

Kevin Heaslip became Director of the Center for Transportation Research and a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville on July 1, 2022. He previously was a Professor, CACI Faculty Fellow, and a Commonwealth Cyber Initiative Fellow at Virginia Tech. He was the interim director and associate director of the Information Systems Laboratory of the Hume Center for National Security and Technology. Heaslip was an Appointed Member of the Resilient America Roundtable of the National Academy of Science from 2014 to 2020.

Heaslip has been awarded over $25 million in research grants and contracts from federal governments, state governments, and industry as an expert in transportation engineering, transportation technology, and critical infrastructure cybersecurity. He has over 150 peer-reviewed journal articles, conference proceedings, and technical reports on the topics of transportation engineering, connected and automated vehicles, transportation big data, and transportation cybersecurity. Heaslip received a BS and MS in Civil Engineering from Virginia Tech and a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Research

Heaslip's lab in the Center for Transportation Research conducts research to address critical areas of transportation and national security in three technological thrusts: 1) future transportation concepts (electrified connected automated transportation), 2) transportation operations (freeway, transit, and integrated corridor management), and 3) cybersecurity (transportation and critical infrastructure).

Education

• PhD, Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2007
• MS, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, 2003
• BS, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, 2002

Professional Service

• Member, American Society of Civil Engineers
• Member, ITE
• Member, Transportation Research Board

Awards and Recognitions

• 2019 Virginia Tech G.V. Loganathan Faculty Achievement Award for Excellence in Civil Engineering Education
• 2017 Virginia Tech Favorite Faculty Award
• 2015 Outstanding Alumni, University of Massachusetts Institute of Transportation Engineers Student Chapter
• 2013-2014 Outstanding Young Alumni, Virginia Tech Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering
• 2014 USU Civil & Environmental Engineering Teacher of the Year
• 2013 USU Civil & Environmental Engineering Undergraduate Research Mentor of the Year
• 2011 & 2012 USU Civil & Environmental Engineering Outstanding Researcher
• 2011 USU College of Engineering Undergraduate Research Mentor of the Year

Publications

This is an abbreviated list of publications. To view all of Heaslip's publications, view his Google Scholar page.

• Dabiri, S., & Heaslip, K. (2018). Inferring transportation modes from GPS trajectories using a convolutional neural network. Transportation research part C: emerging technologies, 86, 360-371.
• Freckleton, D., Heaslip, K., Louisell, W., & Collura, J. (2012). Evaluation of resiliency of transportation networks after disasters. Transportation research record, 2284(1), 109-116.
• Kelarestaghi, K. B., Foruhandeh, M., Heaslip, K., & Gerdes, R. (2019). Intelligent transportation system security: impact-oriented risk assessment of in-vehicle networks. IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Magazine, 13(2), 91-104.
• Dabiri, S., & Heaslip, K. (2019). Developing a Twitter-based traffic event detection model using deep learning architectures. Expert systems with applications, 118, 425-439.
• Gerdes, R. M., Winstead, C., & Heaslip, K. (2013). CPS: an efficiency-motivated attack against autonomous vehicular transportation. In Proceedings of the 29th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (pp. 99-108).
• Soltani-Sobh, A., Heaslip, K., Stevanovic, A., Bosworth, R., & Radivojevic, D. (2017). Analysis of the electric vehicles adoption over the United States. Transportation research procedia, 22, 203-212.