The seminar agenda and other key information is outlined on the event website for CEPDS linked here: CEPDS 2026

CEPDS registration is free to all Purdue University faculty, staff, and students.

Registration can be found at the link provided here.

The Leonard E. Wood Lecture Series will be the Opening Keynote for CEPDS, scheduled from 8:30am to 9:20am on Thursday, November 19 in the PMU North Ballroom. Please see below for the executive summary information. 

The Evolution and Future of Highway Safety: Driving Universal Engineering Transformation
Rick O. Drumm, P.E.

Executive Summary

Elevating the Perspective of Innovation in Engineering

As infrastructure demands shift, modern traffic safety engineering requires a profound move from reactive fixes to human-centric, proactive design. Gone is the relatively easy-going, tourist-focused realm of Route 66. The historic significance of its connection cannot be questioned; however traffic safety has evolved immensely, transitioning from localized damage control (“Where are the most crashes?”) to systemic, predictive modeling using the Highway Safety Manual and the Safe System Approach. This keynote addresses how traffic safety professionals are leading this attitude shift by designing for real-world human behavior and the critical limits of human tolerance.

The Value: Professional Development for Hoosier Engineers

Tailored specifically for the Civil Engineering Professional Development Seminar at Purdue University, this session bridges the gap between specialized traffic safety and general engineering practice. By analyzing the structural evolution of highway safety, along with future direction, attendees will discover universal principles of growth, systemic data analysis, and proactive risk management. Participants will gain a transferable perspective to apply these transformative concepts to their own diverse engineering disciplines across Indiana, modernizing their approach to problem-solving and improving the future of Indiana engineering.

Core Audience Takeaways

• Predictive and Proactive vs. Reactive Action: Shifting from historical problem-solving to systemic, data-driven foresight in project development.
• The Safe System Approach: How to design resilient infrastructure that proactively accounts for human error and physical tolerance limits.
• The Mindset for Transformation: Improve the flexibility of attendees as they learn lessons from this arc for the future of all engineering, including:
  • Acknowledge (against our nature) that engineering is an evolving profession.
  • It may take several iterations to continue to improve.
  • We can learn from others. Humility is a virtue.