Liang Y. Liu serves as DPI’s Interim Director of Capital Programs since fall 2021. Prior to his appointment at DPI, he was the Associate Dean of Facilities and Capital Planning of the College of Engineering of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 2016 to 2019. During his tenure, he oversaw 48 buildings with over 1.41-million assigned square feet of research and educational spaces serving over 10,000 students and led major engineering capital projects including Campus Instructional Facility ($75m), Sidney Lu Mechanical Engineering Building ($42m), Civil Engineering Hydro Systems Laboratory ($32m), and Talbot Laboratory addition ($12m).
Liang joined the faculty of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1992. He was a tenured faculty member teaching and conducting research in the Construction Engineering and Management Program until 2019 when he retired. He continued to teach a graduate-level course at the CEE Department until 2021. From 2010 to 2016, he was the Associate Head and Director of Undergraduate Studies, serving 700-850 undergraduate students annually at the time. He had won teaching, research, and advising awards, including mentoring young civil engineering professionals.
Liang earned his Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering (Construction Engineering and Management) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 1991.