Kieran Sharp wins Roads Australia’s Technical Excellence award for 2013

MEDIA RELEASE    
4 December 2013
For immediate release

Kieran Sharp wins Roads  Australia’s Technical Excellence award for 2013

ARRB is delighted to announce that Kieran Sharp’s 37 years of dedication to road research, both nationally and internationally, was yesterday recognised by industry through the granting of the Roads Australia Technical Excellence award.
In accepting the award, Kieran emphasised that while there were too many people to individually thank for their support, Drs Max Lay and John Metcalf – his mentors over 37 years, and both themselves winners of Roads Australia awards – deserved special mention.

Kieran highlighted the importance of the mentoring relationship in developing talent and leadership in the industry.  He exhorted those present to do whatever they could to ensure that the generation that comes after them is equipped with the technical and softer skills required to meet the challenges that lie ahead. 

The award recognised, among other things, Kieran’s:

• leadership of technical aspects of the Performance Based Standards (PBS) approach to heavy vehicle regulation in Australia, which is now delivering significant productivity benefits through the increasing use of PBS high productivity freight vehicles
• enduring focus on well written, high-quality technical publications, commencing during his time as editor of the ARRB Road and Transport Research Journal and continuing on through his involvement in the development of conference papers, technical reports, national guidelines, and various compendia
• leadership of the local and international effort involving the use of accelerated pavement testing (APT) to address major technical issues, including material properties, response to load, rutting, fatigue, effects of load characteristics and bringing together the efforts of the international APT community through conferences and projects
• commitment to technical quality and knowledge dissemination in South-East Asia, commencing with the preparation of the first REAAA Journal in the 1970s (with John Metcalf) and subsequently, as Chairman of the REAAA Technical Committee, maintaining this publication.

Highlights from Kieran’s career include:

• 
  1992: Directors Prize 16th ARRB Conference for contribution of ALF to pavements research
• 2003: First ARRB staff member to receive an Austroads Achievement Award in recognition of his contribution to Austroads activities over the previous 20 years
• 2004: Best paper award (Theme 5) of the 6th International Conference on Managing Pavements
• 2011: Honorary Membership of REAAA.

MEDIA ENQUIRIES 

ARRB Group Ltd.
Briarlea Green
Team Leader – Knowledge Transfer & Marketing
+61 3 9881 1555
www.arrb.com.au
media@arrb.com.au