1. Teaching and Research Statement
Xuanchen Yan
My teaching and research involve construction engineering and management with a
specific focus on innovative materials and infrastructure systems. My teaching
philosophy employs developing students’ problem solving strategies, insuring that
students understand foundational concepts and teaching students to work
collaboratively. My professional service involves work with the American Society of
Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the Buried Asset Management Institute-International
(BAMI-I).
My teaching and service experiences also show that my personality is suitable to be a
teacher. I have been a TA for six courses (Introduction to Foundation Engineering,
Engineering and Construction Surveying, Engineering Problem Solving,
Reinforcement Concrete, Foundation & Formwork, Introduction to Trenchless
Technology and Asset Management) at Louisiana Tech for four years. The average
enrolls 30 students every year. For these students (more than 200 in total), I hold regular
office hours for them, grade their assignments and instruct. Most students are positive
about my approach to answering their questions; in many cases, I can identify critical
points and generate ideas to stimulate their interests about the course.
As an instructor, when we did the concrete compression and beam bending tests for
CVET 471, I have always encouraged students to understand the test principle, purpose
and methods and bring in problems from practical problems like beams and bridges in
the campus and town. For example, the breaking point of the beam either happens at
the center or the outer zone in the compression test, but it happens at the center most of
the times. Students got used to the center equation to calculate the maximum stress and
strain but forgot to switch the side equation when the break happened at outer side. I
would like to go back to the textbook and foundational concepts and taught the students
why we need two different calculation equations. Also, the failure mechanism would
be emphasized all the time so that students would have a strong foundation in the future
design and work.
Chrise was one student in Introduction to Trenchless Technology course in 2015. The
purpose he took this course was to get a job in oil drilling. I was the instructor for the
drilling fluid testing for this course. After he successfully completed this curriculum,
he entered into the field of oil drilling, Hew-tex Company. He mentioned in the
Linkedin that my instruction for the drilling fluid helped him to get the foundational
concepts of his daily job now.
My dissertation research focuses on experimental and numerical evaluation of a new
composite pressure pipe for a new trenchless rehabilitation technology. In the course of
my research, my experiences and interactions with faculty and students at the
Trenchless Technology Center at Louisiana Tech University have provided me with a

2. multi-disciplinary perspective that will be useful in teaching and developing courses
related to materials, algorithmic approaches to problem solving, experimental
evaluation and Internet collaboration relevant to civil engineering.
I plan to introduce the concepts of infrastructure asset management to traditional
construction management graduate courses like management of the entire lifecycle—
including design, construction, commissioning, operating, maintaining, repairing,
modifying, replacing and decommissioning/disposal—of physical and infrastructure
assets to train students in efficient manager to operate and maintain their cost effectively.