During his year as a CRGP visiting scholar, Dr. Pi-Chu Chiu worked as a research manager on the China in Africa Project, which investigates how Chinese contractors develop and operate their business of building infrastructure in Africa.

"In working with colleagues across more than four time zones, I have a clearer idea of what global teamwork looks like," Pi-Chu comments.

Through his work he gained a vivid insight into the political, economic, and social dynamics that impact the development of global infrastructure projects. Another insight was the connection of institutional theory to construction management.

Pi-Chu came to Stanford from the Taiwan Construction Research Institute. As an associate research fellow at TCRI, he was responsible for the research/consulting projects on private-participated infrastructure and construction management. At Stanford he hoped to learn state-of-the-art technologies and, he says, "how brilliant scholars create new knowledge, how students are incubated, and how a pioneering research program operates."

He feels his contributions to CRGP include his work in compiling information on infrastructure public-private partnerships and on infrastructure funds. He helped build relationships between CRGP and Asian scholars and would like to see CRGP expand its collaborative network to potential Asian research/education entities through tailored cooperation programs.

This past August Pi-Chu returned to Taiwan to join the Civil Engineering faculty at Tamkang University. He will oversee an undergraduate program called "construction enterprise" and will continue his research on risk management in public-private partnerships.

Posted by rjorr at September 29, 2007 12:13 AM