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College of Applied Science and Technology

Dr. Xi Hu

Assistant Professor
Technology
Office
TUR Turner Hall 172a
Office Phone
(309) 438-3696office
phone
Email
xhu1238@ilstu.eduemail
Website
https://scholar.google.com/citation... website
  • About
  • Education
  • Awards & Honors
  • Research

Biography

Dr. Hu is currently an Assistant Professor of Construction Management in the Department of Technology at ISU. Before this appointment, he was at New Jersey Institute of Technology for his academic training and obtained his Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering (Construction Management focus) in May 2025. He has mentored more than 10 students from high school to graduate school levels for research and served as a reviewer for various prestigious journals in his field, such as ASCE Journal of Management in Engineering, ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, and Elsevier's Journal of Building and Environment. His research work has been published in plenty of well-known journals like ASCE Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, ASCE Journal of Bridge Engineering, Elsevier's Journal of Expert Systems With Applications, Elsevier's Journal of Building Engineering, and ASCE International Journal of Geomechanics.

Current Courses

TEC 224.001 Soils And Foundations

TEC 224.002 Soils And Foundations

TEC 292.001 Construction Materials Technology

TEC 229.001 Cost Estimating

TEC 400.005 Independent Study

Teaching Interests & Areas

Construction materials, cost estimating, soil mechanics, strength of materials, and building information modeling.

Research Interests & Areas

Dr. Hu's primary research interests are construction automation, digital twins, applied robotics and artificial intelligence, smart sensing, and data analytics. Research areas include (1) digitization of built environment, (2) smart workforce monitoring and management (workforce safety and productivity), (3) intelligent infrastructure systems, and (4) structural health monitoring.

His research aims to advance and enrich the managerial practices of built assets (e.g., buildings, bridges, and pavements), construction workforce, and civil infrastructures through domain knowledge-enhanced, data-driven, technology-enabled, and AI-powered solutions.

PhD Civil Engineering

New Jersey Institute of Technology
Newark, New Jersey

MS Project Management

Illinois State University
Normal, Illinois

BE Hydrology and Water Resources Engineering

Southwest University
Chongqing, China

Doctoral Excellence Award

New Jersey Institute of Technology
2025

3-Minute-Thesis Compitition Honorable Mention

New Jersey Institute of Technology
2025

Conference Proceeding

Hu, X., & Assaad, R. H. (2024). Intelligent inspection and warning robotic system for onsite construction safety monitoring using computer vision and unmanned ground vehicle. In Construction Research Congress 2024 (pp. 628-637).
Hu, X., & Assaad, R. H. (2024). Automated heat stress monitoring and water-spraying robotic system for improving work conditions using drone (UAV) infrared thermography. In Construction Research Congress 2024 (pp. 748-756).
Hu, X., & Assaad, R. H. (2023). Cloud-enabled indoor thermal comfort assessment and visualization using digital twins, IoT, robotics, and indoor positioning technology. In Computing in Civil Engineering 2023 (pp. 807-814).
Hu, X., & Assaad, R. H. (2023). Integration of autonomous robotics, indoor localization technologies, and IoT sensing for real-time cloud-based indoor air quality monitoring and visualization. In Computing in Civil Engineering 2023 (pp. 707-715).

Journal Article

Hu, X., & Assaad, R. H. (2024). A BIM-enabled digital twin framework for real-time indoor environment monitoring and visualization by integrating autonomous robotics, LiDAR-based 3D mobile mapping, IoT sensing, and indoor positioning technologies. Journal of Building Engineering, 86, 108901.
Hu, X., & Assaad, R. H. (2024). Improving the predictive analytics of machine-learning pipelines for bridge infrastructure asset management applications: an upstream data workflow to address data quality issues in the national bridge inventory database. Journal of Bridge Engineering, 29(1), 04023103.
Hu, X., Assaad, R. H., & Hussein, M. (2024). Discovering key factors and causalities impacting bridge pile resistance using ensemble Bayesian networks: A bridge infrastructure asset management system. Expert Systems with Applications, 238, 121677.
Hu, X., Olgun, G., & Assaad, R. H. (2024). An intelligent BIM-enabled digital twin framework for real-time structural health monitoring using wireless IoT sensing, digital signal processing, and structural analysis. Expert Systems with Applications, 252, 124204.
Hu, X., & Assaad, R. H. (2023). The use of unmanned ground vehicles (mobile robots) and unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) in the civil infrastructure asset management sector: Applications, robotic platforms, sensors, and algorithms. Expert Systems with Applications, 232.