Behind every Iowa DOT research innovation is a real human being dedicated to helping ideas become reality. Here you can learn more about the Iowa DOT Research staff members and what makes them tick.
Name: Khyle Clute, SPR Research Engineer, Research & Analytics Bureau.
Number of years in this role: 3
What do you do in the Research & Analytics Bureau?
I manage the research portion of the federally funded State Planning and Research program.
This involves research idea development, contract and finance coordination, project oversight and closeout, and implementation and promotion of results in Iowa and around the nation.
Have you always been drawn to research? What has your career path been like?
My draw to research started in college while pursuing seemingly disjointed degrees in Psychology and Civil Engineering. I was drawn to the apparent disagreement between drivers’ perceptions of their abilities versus actual behavior and resulting crashes.
I was able to explore this during my six-month co-op experience with Iowa DOT’s Traffic and Safety Bureau beginning in July 2006. My interest and involvement in crash data analysis led to a 21-month shared research student position between Iowa DOT and Iowa State University’s Institute for Transportation.
In the fall of 2008, I was able to take advantage of Iowa DOT’s Transportation Engineer Associate program, which allowed for students in their last year of study to accept a full-time position pending graduation and certification requirements.
I was offered a position in the Methods Section of the Design Bureau, where I focused on work zones, pavement markings and supporting design decisions based on crash analysis and research. After becoming a licensed Civil Engineer, this expanded to include roadside design, safety hardware and inclusion in some of the initial asset management and in-service performance evaluation efforts for Iowa DOT.
The transition to my current position as the SPR Research Engineer began in fall of 2017 when I accepted a position back at the Institute of Transportation to fulfill an in-house consulting opportunity for Iowa DOT’s Research and Analytics Bureau.
Early this year, I followed the position to the Iowa County Engineers Association Service Bureau where I remain as the SPR Research Engineer.
What’s your favorite part of your work?
I really enjoy developing the foundation of an idea into a project and trying to locate or determine the need to gather supporting data to serve as the basis of existing conditions and forming it in such a way that as we capture data during the project, we’re able to make the needed connections.
Doing so allows us to determine what is actually taking place during the study such that we’re able to appropriately associate successful outcomes and shape operational changes accordingly. Being able to share these outcomes with other partners in Iowa and around the country is a wonderful payoff.
What initiative on the horizon do you think will make a big impact for the research bureau?
As an increasing number of vehicles on the road become equipped with smart technology, we are going to enter a data expansion like we’ve never seen in the transportation industry. The trick will be forming the relationships between the departments of transportation and the vehicle users and manufacturers that enable for two-way communication that benefit both parties.
The DOTs stand to gain real-time data gathering of the roadway network, traffic conflicts and maintenance needs. Vehicle users stand to gain advanced notice of potential traffic issues, route optimization opportunities and roadway crash history and lane departure warnings.
Harnessing this data will be a massive undertaking but the benefits could transform the DOT-user relationship in a way that hasn’t been seen before.
What do you like to do in your time off?
As the father of two boys that are always on the go, there are always video games to be played, bikes to be ridden and make-believe monsters to be captured.
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