Rate My Professor Kevin Rens

Kevin L. Rens, PhD, PE, serves as Professor and Chair of the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Colorado Denver, a position he has held since 2009. He joined the university in 1995 as Assistant Professor, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2001 and Professor in 2007, and served as Founding Director of the Construction Engineering program from 2014 to 2019. Rens earned his BS in Civil Engineering in 1988, MS in Civil Engineering (Structures) in 1989, and PhD in Civil Engineering (Structures) in 1994, all from Iowa State University. He holds Professional Engineer licenses in Colorado (since 1996) and Iowa (since 2017). Prior to his academic career, he worked as an engineer at Todd and Sargent in Ames, Iowa (1994-1995) and as a consultant at Western Engineering and Research Corporation in Denver (1995-2005). Under his leadership as Department Chair, the BS in Civil Engineering program received maximum six-year accreditation in 2011, 2017, and 2023. He has been principal advisor to 10 PhD students and over 50 MS students in Civil Engineering since 1995. Rens has received multiple awards from the University of Colorado Denver College of Engineering, including Outstanding Teaching Awards (2000, 2001), Outstanding Research Award (2002), Outstanding Service Award (2004), Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award (2013), and was selected as a Campus Urban Engaged Scholar in 2019 with a research focus on bridge safety.

Rens' research and professional practice emphasize bridge inspection, rating, maintenance, rehabilitation, and forensic engineering. Since 1997, as sole principal investigator, he has secured approximately $10 million in external funding from the City and County of Denver, overseeing inspections of 650 bridges, 1,600 miles of pavement, 3,200 miles of street subsystems, and 5,200 alleys. He has managed major rehabilitation projects, including the $1.9 million Evans over Santa Fe viaduct (2011-2013), $1.2 million Evergreen Bridge replacement (2013-2019), $5.8 million 20th Street Bridge over the Platte River (2021-2023), and ongoing $8.2 million 8th Avenue Viaduct rehabilitation. Key publications include 'Physics guided neural networks for bridge deterioration forecasting' by Lie, Rens, and Baneai-Kashani (Transportation Research Board, 2023); 'Long term performance of a curved box girder viaduct' by Zhou, Nogueira, Rens, and Li (ASCE Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities, 2021); 'Failure Analysis of Pot Bearings in a Curved Viaduct' by Wang, Li, Rens, and Nogueira (ASCE Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities, 2020); and editorship of 'Forensic Engineering: Proceedings of the Third Congress' (2003). His work integrates students into real-world projects, providing hands-on experience in infrastructure assessment and construction management.