Thomas Bennert, Ph.D., has more than 15 years of research and practical experience in asphalt materials and flexible pavement engineering. He is director of the CAIT-Rutgers Asphalt Pavement Laboratory (CAIT-RAPL). Under his supervision, CAIT-RAPL has grown to be one of the country’s leading asphalt research labs. The lab is an AASHTO-accredited Asphalt Material Research Lab (AMRL). There are only a handful of university-based accredited labs in the country and only two in New Jersey. RAPL is accredited under this designation in hot mix asphalt and asphalt binder testing.

Bennert is a member of the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Technical Working Group (TWG) on Warm Mix Asphalt where he will help direct the future evaluation and adoption of WMA in the United States.

He is a member of TRB committee AFK10: General Issues in Asphalt Technology, AFK30: Nonbituminous Components of Bituminous Paving Mixtures and a member of the TRB committee AFD70, Pavement Rehabilitation.

Bennert is a Board of Trustee Member for the New Jersey Society of Asphalt Technologists (NJSAT) and is the instructor for the Level 1 and Level 2 NJSAT Certification courses in the state. He also is an instructor for the National Highway Institute (NHI) course NHI 131045, Hot Mix Asphalt Materials, Characteristics, and Control.

Bennert has served as principal investigator, co-principal investigator, or program manager on several projects involving warm mix asphalt (WMA) and recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) including:

• NJDOT 2008-01, Warm Asphalt Pavements
• NYSDOT Materials and Research Bureau, Performance of Low Energy Asphalt (LEA) Mixtures
• NJDOT Materials Bureau In-House Study, Field Trial of Warm Mix Asphalt on NJ Rt 38
• ICL Performance Products, Performance of HMA Mixed with a Hydrated Hexaphosphate to Achieve a Warm Mix Asphalt
• NJDOT Materials Bureau In-House Study, Higher RAP Percentages Pilot Projects
• NJDOT 2003-10, Dynamic Modulus of NJ HMA
• NJDOT 2005-03, Flexible Overlays for Rigid Pavements