The Board Publications Committee of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) selected W.A. Klinger Teaching Associate Professor Charles Jahren for the 2011 Richard R. Torrens Award.
The annual award honors a distinguished volunteer editor for the ASCE, like Jahren, for his outstanding contributions to the ASCE publications program. Jahren is volunteer chair of the editorial board for the “Journal of Construction Engineering and Management,” a monthly archival academic journal with a strong international following; it is within the family of 33 ASCE journals. Jahren was editor-in-chief of ASCE’s Journal of Construction Engineering and Management from 2006 to 2011.
“I am flattered by the consideration of the editorial board to nominate me,” Jahren said. “Many of the editorial members are top people in national and international construction engineering academics.”
During Jahren’s time as editor-in-chief, he came up with ways to recruit early career construction engineering and management members to what is now a 36-member board. He said that this strategy allows these early career faculty members to hone their research focus by networking with experts to arrange peer reviews for paper submitted by faculty members and experts worldwide. With this system Jahren jointly created mentoring opportunities for younger members with late-career board members. In addition, Jahren created an executive committee that ensures uninterrupted board leadership by having board members rotate through the positions of associate editor, editor-in-chief, and chair of the editorial board in succession. And from 2006 to 2011, the number of article submissions to the journal more than doubled under his command.
Jahren is the construction engineering leader and associate professor in the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering.