The Infrastructure Show's Hosts
Host:
Joseph Schofer is Director of The Infrastructure Technology Institute, and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Associate Dean at the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. He has been on the Northwestern faculty for 38 years, having served as chairman of his department from 1997 through 2002, and as Interim Dean of the McCormick School during 2004-2005.
Professor Schofer earned his B.E. degree in Civil Engineering from Yale University (1963), and his M.S. (1965) and Ph.D. (1968) in transportation engineering from Northwestern. He has published over 125 articles and book chapters and more than 50 technical reports, focusing on urban transportation planning, management and policy making, evaluation, and safety. He is a life Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, a member of the Institute of Transportation Engineers, and he serves on the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Committee on National Transportation Data Requirements and Programs, and TRB’s Advisory Committee on Capacity for the Strategic Highway Research Program 2. He is a member of the Board of Advisors of the University of California, Davis Institute for Transportation Studies and the Citizen’s Advisory Board of Pace, Chicago’s suburban bus transit operator.
Co-Host:
Thomas Herman is an experienced radio show host/producer located in the Chicago area. The idea for The Infrastructure Show was presented to him by friend Marion Sours, and he thought it a very useful thing for the community. He agreed to be a Co-Host, assisting Host Professor Joseph Schofer; and the podcasts, when completed, would then be posted to Vocalo.org 89.5FM, a station he was affiliated with. Tom said he thought he could bring to the project his experience in interviewing; also, he is personally very interested in the infrastructure topic. In addition to his experience at Vocalo.org, Tom has a wide range of experience as an actor, writer, filmmaker and musician, and is an ensemble member of the acclaimed Piven Theatre in Evanston.
Producer:
Marion Sours was Managing Editor of the Chicago plant engineering magazine Plant Services for 17 years, and has long regarded the infrastructure as an area of special interest. In 2007, she and fellow Chicagoan Meagan Flanigan, a mechanical engineer and Second City alumnus, wrote a TV pilot called Engineering Our World, designed to be a news/discussion show about the infrastructure, which was filmed in 2008. Unable to sell the project as a TV show, Sours decided to try for a radio show adaption of the idea, and approached Professor Joseph Schofer, as well as her friend Tom Herman. They both liked the idea, and they reached the consensus that a podcast format show would work best – thus The Infrastructure Show was developed.
Recording:
The Infrastructure Show is recorded at the Reeves Audio Recording studio in Evanston, IL; Jim Reeves, sound engineer.
Site design by Christopher Merrill
Descriptions of photos at top of page, from left to right:
MBTA Green Line subway train at North Station in Boston;
Central Arizona Project water canal;
the Armory, MS lock on the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway;
an electricity pylon in San Bruno, CA.
All photos courtesy of Wikipedia.