This award recognizes faculty members who advance the University of Kentucky's role as an impactful, globally engaged research university through a demonstrated commitment to global engagement.
Stamatiadis first came to the United States as an international student pursuing graduate degrees at Michigan State University. He is a leading international expert on Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS), an approach to roadway design that emphasizes the importance of crafting holistic, participatory transportation solutions accommodated to the context in which they are built.
Stamatiadis has maintained active research and educational collaborations with scholars and practitioners on every continent and has delivered CSS workshops to transportation officials and government ministries in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Cyprus and China. A multiple Fulbright Scholar award winner, Stamatiadis has cultivated sustained institutional partnerships with the University of Catania in Italy and the National Technological University of Athens, among others. His passion for research and education influenced Stamatiadis to serve as the faculty advisor for the UK chapter of Engineers Without Borders – a role that led him to take UK student engineers to Ecuador, Honduras, Cameroon and Malawi.
In nominating Stamatiadis for the award, Reginald Souleyrette, former chair of the Department of Civil Engineering, noted that his colleague's impressive publication record, numerous engagements with researchers and transportation practitioners on every continent, and a resolute commitment to his students have significantly raised UK's profile within the global civil engineering community.
"He views the world as both a laboratory and classroom and urges those he works with to look at and analyze transportation challenges in a way that is mindful of their sociocultural context, but which does not neglect the more global and far-reaching implications of particular issues," Souleyrette concluded.