HDR’s Alexa Mitchell Elected to buildingSMART International Infrastructure Committee

Infrastructure Room Steering Committee Advances Global Open Data Standards for Digital Design and Construction

Alexa Mitchell, HDR’s transportation BIM program manager, has been elected to the steering committee of buildingSMART International’s Infrastructure Room. This influential group of global industry leaders is developing, sharing and promoting the open data standards that will redefine how the world’s infrastructure is created.

Much of today’s infrastructure design is completed in proprietary formats, which complicates the exchange of digital data used during planning, design, construction, and operations and maintenance. BuildingSMART is the international nonprofit authority for open standards that will resolve this difficulty by allowing for the reliable and consistent passing of detailed 3D model information and attributes seamlessly across software packages.

The 12 members of the Infrastructure Room steering committee serve for four years and oversee the buildingSMART projects and activities that move forward open standards in infrastructure. The global steering committee includes representatives from Australia, Sweden, Japan, the U.K. and beyond. Mitchell’s term began April 1, 2023.

“I’ve dedicated most of my career to the advancement of digital delivery and invested a great deal of sweat equity in trying to advance this practice,” Mitchell said. “Broader adoption of open standards in the U.S. is just around the corner, and I’m excited to be part of that journey and an agent of change.”

Mitchell has led cutting-edge research on digital delivery for state DOTs, authored technical guidance documents and facilitated workshops and webinars for the Federal Highway Administration related to 3D model-based delivery. She co-authored the first ISO-compliant and AASHTO-adopted information delivery manual in the U.S., laying out data exchange specifications for highway bridges. And she has served as technical lead on the ongoing HDR-led effort to develop an open, national standard for the design, fabrication and construction of U.S. bridges and structures.

“This election is continued proof of Alexa’s extraordinary thought leadership in digital delivery, in the U.S. and globally,” said HDR Highways Director Will Sharp, who co-chairs buildingSMART USA’s Roads and Bridges Industry Committee. “Her expertise will be invaluable as buildingSMART sets a new foundation with enhanced digital workflows for how we design, build and maintain the infrastructure the world uses every day.”