Goulias Receives 2025 AASHTO High Value Research Award

pedestrian safety

Associate Professor Dimitrios Goulias, a faculty member in the University of Maryland’s (UMD) Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has been honored with a High Value Research Award from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) for his research project “Evaluating the Correlation Between Slip Resistance and Skid Resistance of Pavement Markings at Crosswalks."

In this research project, Goulias sets out to assess how different weather conditions, notably icy and wet weather versus dry, interact with the materials used in pavement markings, thus affecting friction–which in turn impacts the risk of vehicles skidding or pedestrians slipping.

His research confirms that icy and wet conditions lead to reduced friction regardless of the materials used. Beyond that, it establishes and quantifies for the first time, in a systematic and combined laboratory and field approach, the relationship between pedestrian slip resistance (PSR) and vehicle skid resistance (TSR). His findings suggest that, while Maryland and other state specifications for pavement markings factor in TSR, they should also consider PSR in order to improve crosswalk safety.

The awarded project and a paper will be presented at a special session on the AASHTO High Value Research Awards at the Transportation Research Board annual meeting in January 2026.

As UMD civil and environmental engineering faculty, Goulias partners frequently with state and federal agencies on projects related to pavement, highway and bridge materials, quality control and risk analysis, non-destructive evaluation, machine learning, and incorporation of sustainable materials. Recent work has focused on the development of “green highway” systems with a smaller emissions footprint compared to traditional approaches. He is chair of the awards committee at UMD’s A. James Clark School of Engineering, leads TRB committees, and serve as associate editor of scientific professional journals.

Published November 21, 2025