Academy of Distinguished Alumni

  • Alumni Image #1:
  • Image Caption Title #1: Grooving in Progress - Brazil
  • Image Caption #1: In 1973, Hudson founded the Texas Research and Development Foundation and directed a $15M materials and pavement research project in Brazil sponsored by the Brazilian government, the United Nations and the World Bank.
  • Alumni Image #2:
  • Image Caption Title #2: Asset Management
  • Image Caption #2: Hudson pioneered the concept of pavement management systems, which introduce a systematic process to manage highway infrastructure. This process has also been applied to include the entire system of transportation infrastructure assets encompassing total quality management, economics, life-cycle analysis, and maintenance, rehabilitation, and reconstruction programming.

ron hudson

W. Ronald Hudson

Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin, 1965
M.S., University of Texas at Austin, 1955
B.S., Texas A&M University, 1954

Ronald Hudson has made groundbreaking contributions to transportation engineering education and practice. He pioneered the concept of pavement management systems, which introduce a systematic rational process that emphasizes modern statistical and systems analysis techniques to the management of the highway infrastructure. The concepts have since been generalized and adopted beyond the pavement realm to include the entire system of transportation infrastructure assets. 

Dr. Hudson has maintained a very active role in international technical affairs, having worked in 15 countries including Peru, Holland, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, China and Nigeria. From 1975-80, he served as International Director of a $15 million research program sponsored by the United Nations Development Program and the Brazilian government. He was also Principal Investigator of a major study on long-term pavement performance under the Strategic Highway Research Program from 1987-90. He started his research career at the AASHO Road Test in 1958-61.

Dr. Hudson has received a number of national and international honors in recognition of his contributions, including the ASCE J. James Croes Medal, the Outstanding Paper Award, Texas Section of the ASCE, the ASTM Kummer Lecture Award, the Outstanding Paper Award of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering, and the Outstanding Achievement Award of ASTM.

After receiving his PhD from UT Austin in 1965, Dr. Hudson joined the Department of Civil Engineering as an Instructor. He retired in 2001 as a professor and is the Dewitt C. Greer Centennial Professor Emeritus in Transportation Engineering.