Dr. Said Easa

With his father employed at Cairo’s railway yard, Said Easa grew up around trains. He even drove a locomotive at the age of 10. Not surprisingly, his fourth-year undergraduate project was on railyard design. “Despite all that,” laughs Easa, “my parents wanted me to go into medicine. But you’ve got to do what you’re passionate about. That leads to excellence.”

Now focused more on roads than rails, Easa is currently working on an in-vehicle collision warning system that takes into account the specific design of the vehicle and the driver’s unique characteristics. “The system collects data from all the activities of the car and uses sensors to calculate risks, such as passing another car on a two-lane highway.”

In all of his projects, Easa is attracted to complexity. “Structures interest me less than the dynamic, unpredictable human side of transportation. People change over time, so the human factor is never stable. How we travel, use machines, use roads – this is always shifting. Collaborations with psychology are especially useful in advancing the civil engineering area.”

Does he still think about trains? “Yes! I’m a transportation engineer, and part of me is still that boy in the yard.”