Amlan Mukherjee

Ph.D., University of Washington

[Research | Teaching | Publications | Talks | Other Interests]

News!

I have recently accepted the Donald F. and Rose Ann Tomasini Assistant Professorship in Construction Engineering at the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Michigan Tech..

Contact Information

215, Fluke Hall
Box #352142
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195-2142

Phone:(206)-616-1499
Email:amlan at hitl.washington.edu

Research

My research agenda seeks to apply techniques in artificial intelligence to develop interactive, adaptive, programmable and general-purpose simulation platforms for the construction management (CM) domain. Such simulation systems can be used as decision making aids, in training decision makers and also to better understand human cognitive and decision-making processes in construction. The programmability and general-purpose nature of the simulation platforms will allow developers from industry and academia to collaborate and simulate a variety of construction processes. The ultimate goal of the research is to study the construction management (CM) domain as a tightly coupled system of human and resource interactions and to integrate it with existing construction theories to develop a systemic perspective of the complexities in the CM domain.

Ph.D. Dissertation

A Multi-Agent Framework for General Purpose Situational Simulations in Construction Management

My Ph.D. dissertation investigates the issues involved in developing a multi-agent framework that supports a general-purpose situational simulation environment for construction management processes. I proposed the usage of an interval representation of time and classification of construction management problems as constraint satisfaction problems, to represent and reason about events and situations in the construction management domain.

I also focus on the usefulness of such adaptive learning environments and similar coupled systems in exploring cognitive and meta-cognitive behavior in dynamically evolving natural and social systems.

Specifically, I implemented an interactive situational simulation of a construction project using a general purpose multi-agent framework that I proposed and implemented and used it as a test-bed to examine the hypothesis that Construction Managers learn by developing a better understanding of the constraints, limits and affordances that the simulated system offers.

For a brief description of the system implementation follow this link

My advisor is Dr.Eddy Rojas. I am also being guided in my research by Prof. Joe Mahoney (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering), Prof.Tom Furness, (Director, HITL) and Prof. Bill Winn (College of Education)

Other Research/Development Projects

Surgical Simulator Project at the HIT Lab. with Suzanne Weghorst (2003)
Developed a peer-to-peer web-service supporting a surgical simulator using Apache XML-SOAP with Suzzane Weghorst (Funded by Agency for Health Research & Quality)

The Virtual Encyclopedia Project with Prof. Eddy M. Rojas (2001-2002)
Developed and implemented the interface for a Web based Interactive Multi-Media Encyclopedia for High School Students, (Funded by National Electrical Contractor's Association)

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Teaching

Instructor:
CEE498A: AutoCAD Design (Spring 2004, Fall 2004)

Teaching Assistant Assignments:

Transportation Engineering, University of Washington, Winter 2003
Construction Estimation, Project Management, University of Washington, 2001-2002
Surveying, Engineering Statistics, University at Buffalo, SUNY, 2000-2001

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Publications

Journal Papers

Rojas, E. & Mukherjee A. (2005) "Interval Temporal Logic in General Purpose Situational Simulations," Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, ASCE, 19(1) pp 83-93 [pdf]

Rojas, E. & Mukherjee A. (2005) "A General Purpose Situational Simulation Environment for Construction Education," Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, ASCE, 131(3) pp 319-329[pdf]

Rojas, E. & Mukherjee A. (2003). "Modeling the Construction Management Process to Support Situational Simulations," Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, ASCE, 17(4) pp 273-280. [pdf]

Rojas, E. & Mukherjee A. (2003) "A Multi-Agent Framework for General Purpose Situational Simulations in the Construction Management Domain," Submitted to the Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, ASCE.

Conference Papers

Mukherjee, A., Rojas, E. & Winn, W. "Exploring Mental Models of Construction Managers" Accepted for the Construction Congress 2005, ASCE. [pdf](This is a manuscript, not the original paper)

Mukherjee, A., Rojas, E. & Winn, W. "Understanding Cognitive and Meta- Cognitive Processes in Construction Management: The System Dynamics Perspective" Accepted for the Construction Congress 2005, ASCE. [pdf](This is a manuscript, not the original paper)

Mukherjee, A., Winn, W. & Rojas, E. "Using Agent Driven Situational Simulations for Training Construction Managers" Abstract accepted for presentation at the American Educational Researcher's Annual Meeting, Montreal, 2005.

Mukherjee, A. & Rojas, E. "Situational Simulations in Construction Management" Submitted to the International Conference on Computing in Civil Engineering, 2005

Mukherjee, A., Winn, W. & Rojas, E. "Interactive Situational Simulations in Construction Management" Accepted for presentation at the First Conference on the Future of the AEC Industry, Las Vegas, 2005. Organized by the Building Futures Council.[pdf](This is a manuscript, not the original paper)

Mukherjee, A., Rojas, E. & Winn, W. (2004) "Implementing A General Purpose Framework Using Multi-Agents For Construction Management Education," Winter Simulation Conference, ACM/SIGSIM, Washington DC, December, 2004 [pdf]

Mukherjee, A. & Rojas, E. (2003) "Reasoning about Actions and Events in Situational Simulations," Winter Simulation Conference, ACM/SIGSIM, New Orleans, December 7th-10th, 2003 [pdf]

Mukherjee, A & Rojas, E. (2003) "Applying Multi-Agents for General Purpose Situational Simulations in Construction Management," ASCE Construction Research Council, Ph.D. Research Symposium, Nashville, November 14, 2003 [pdf]

Rojas, E. and Mukherjee, A. (2003). "Implementing Situational Simulations through Distributed Databases." Proceedings of the 2003 Construction Congress, ASCE, March. [pdf]

Rojas, E. and Mukherjee, A. (2003). "Visualizing Situational Simulation Information." Proceedings of the 2003 Construction Congress, ASCE, March. [pdf]

Rojas, E. and Mukherjee, A. (2002). "Data Modeling for the Virtual Coach." Proceedings of the International Workshop on Information Technology in Civil Engineering, ASCE, 308-317. [pdf]

Undergraduate Research

Gupta, R. and Mukherjee, A. (1999) "Systems Approach for Passive Solar Architecture Design," Passive Solar Architecture, One day workshop at BITS, Pilani, February, 1999.

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Talks

Winter Simulation Conference 2004, Washington DC, 7th December, 2004
Title: Implementing a General Purpose Framework Using Multi-Agents for CM Education[pdf]

Human Interface Technology Lab., UW, Consortium Meeting, 2004. Conducted a workshop with Ruth Fruland, 4th August, 2004
Title: Teaching Complexity in Virtual Space [pdf]

Winter Simulation Conference 2003, New Orleans, December 2003
Title: Reasoning about Actions and Events in Situational Simulations [pdf]

ASCE Construction Research Council, Ph.D. Research Symposium, Nashville, November 14, 2003
Title: Applying Multi-Agents for General Purpose Situational Simulations in Construction Management [pdf]

Invited talk: Colloquim in the Built Environment, BE 550, 9th October 2003, College of Architecture, UW
Title: A Multi-Agent Framework for General Purpose Situational Simulations in Construction Management [pdf]

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Other Interests

Member and Web Maintenance in-charge for the UW SEBA (Science and Engineering Business Association)

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