Structures, Mechanics and Construction Engineering

• Rehabilitation and Durability of Concrete Structures
• Advanced Materials such as Fiber Reinforced Polymers
• Design and rehabilitation of infrastructure specifically bridges
• Reliability and Risk Assessment of Structures
• Active Learning in Engineering Education

Adil Al-Mayah is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and cross-appointed to the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering. He has a unique blend of work experience in both the engineering and medical fields, resulting in the licensing of ground-breaking innovations in both areas. Professor Al-Mayah’s expertise spans from materials, mechanics and structural applications to biomechanics, imaging and medical physics.
 
His research in materials is centered on the integration of imaging and mechanics for material characterization, which will target the mechanical properties of engineering materials using a new approach that merges imaging, mechanics and numerical modeling. This innovative approach will shift the mechanical characterization of materials from the conventional “overall” performance to a “components-based” evaluation. It will also transfer conventional visual image inspection to a detailed image-based mechanical analysis with stress distribution, and deformation to identify failure initiation and the role of each component on the load carrying capacity.
 In mechanics and structural applications, a comprehensive research program on the interfacial mechanics of fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) has resulted in the design of a gripping system known as FibreLokTM that enables structural engineers to utilize full high tensile strength of FRP rods.
 
Professor Al-Mayah is also conducting research on biomechanical properties of soft tissues and medical applications. The research focuses on the development of new minimally invasive techniques to measure in vivo, and patient-specific mechanical properties of tissues. In addition, he has applied biomechanical modeling for image guided radiotherapy of the lungs, head-and-neck, liver, prostate, and breast. This has been contributing to the accurate delivery of radiotherapy doses to the tumor while sparing healthy tissues.
 
In conclusion, innovative research activities are under way in which engineering and medical techniques are merged to address the challenges in both fields.

Dr. Robert Gracie is an Associate Professor in the Department of the Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Waterloo (UW) and is an expert in Computational Engineering. His expertise is applied the development of novel simulation technologies/software and the deployment of commercial analysis software to complete problems.

At UW, he carries out research on the development of simulation technologies with an emphasis on multi-physics problems, including fracture and deformations, heat transfer, and multi-constituent fluid flow. Research focuses on the development of novel numerical methods to simulate problems which cannot be readily simulated using exiting commercial software. Recent applications include carbon sequestration, enhanced geothermal systems, hydraulic fracturing, and dissolution solution mining. Past applications include: impact analysis, fracture and fragmentation processes and multiscale analysis.

He has over 400 publications including over 185 refereed journal articles. With Ioannis Brilakis at the University of Cambridge, he co-edited Infrastructure Computer Vision. He serves on a number of editorial boards and on professional committees for organizations such as ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers), NSERC and IAARC. He is a member of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the ASCE. He was elected to the US National Academy of Construction in 2013. He received the ASCE Peurifoy Construction Research Award In 2015. In 2017, he received the University of Waterloo Award of Excellence in Graduate Supervision. In 2019, he received the ASCE Computing in Civil Engineering Award and the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers’ Alan Russell Award.

As a result of his work, Professor Hegazi has received numerous research excellence honours and awards. In 2004, he was acknowledged as one of the world’s top 5 contributing authors to ASCE construction research, as reported in the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management article, Vol. 130, No. 3. Professor Hegazi holds 2 patents, a 2011 Best Paper award from the Journal of Management in Engineering-ASCE, and Top Cited Paper award from the Advanced Engineering Informatics Journal. He has consulted and advised a number of contractors and government organizations in Canada and is also the founder of OPTEAM Project Management Consultants Inc. In addition, Professor Hegazi is the author of the textbook "Computer-Based Construction Project Management" published by Prentice Hall.

Costa Kapsis is a building scientist and architectural engineering educator specializing in sustainable building design. His research bridges science, engineering, and architectural design, with a focus on energy conservation, efficiency, and solar energy generation in buildings and communities. Recently, his work has concentrated on building-integrated photovoltaic technologies, surrogate energy models, and the electrification and climate resilience of cities and communities.

At the University of Waterloo, he co-leads the Climate Resilient and Intelligent Buildings (CRIB) research group, an interdisciplinary team grounded in civil and architectural engineering. He serves as an associate editor of the ASCE Journal of Architectural Engineering and the chair of ASHRAE TC 6.7 Solar Energy and Other Renewables.

Eugene Kim is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Waterloo. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Waterloo and his doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Professor Kim’s research focuses on assessing structures under extreme loads and designing high-performance structural retrofits using innovative materials. He is especially interested in studying the response of structures under earthquake initiated multi-hazard scenarios, particularly earthquake-tsunami events, and using smart materials such as shape memory alloys (SMA’s) for repairing and strengthening damaged structures.

Dr. Kim is primarily interested in studying human-building interactions and the role of technologies to augment occupant performance and building energy efficiency. Her research leverages IoT and data-driven analytics to predict human comfort and behaviour, personalize occupant experience in the built environment and enable intelligent building design and operation. Her research interests also include smart grid technologies and utility cost optimizations.

Daniel Lacroix is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Waterloo. He holds a BASc, MASc, and PhD from the University of Ottawa, in Ottawa, Canada. Dr. Lacroix is primarily interested in studying the behaviour of mid- and high-rise wood structures subjected to extreme loading (e.g. earthquake, blast, impact).
 
Dr. Lacroix’s expertise is in the structural and dynamic performance of wood systems under blast and impact loading, strengthening and retrofitting of wood structural elements using fibre reinforced polymers (FRP), and modelling of wood members under high strain rates. His research interests also include the structural performance of lateral load resisting systems in mass timber buildings, modern and innovative timber connections, resilient design of structures, and evaluation of timber members and engineered wood products at low and high strain rates.

Dr. Li studies strategies to improve indoor air quality and reduce occupant exposure to airborne pollutants in residential and commercial buildings. Her research is focused on smart ventilation and filtration systems that use sensors to automate system operation. She also investigates the impact of occupant activities on indoor pollutant sources and explores the effectiveness of occupant-centric approaches to mitigate these sources. In addition, Dr. Li is working with an interdisciplinary team that includes experts in engineering, epidemiology, medicine, and knowledge translation to improve indoor air quality in community spaces and congregate settings and explore the relationship between indoor air quality and public health policy and guidance. Dr. Li serves as a member of the Indoor Air Quality Advisory Group of the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, which is working to create guidelines for indoor air quality.

Alana Lund is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Waterloo.
 
Dr. Lund has extensive research experience in the mechanics and dynamics of civil structures, with a focus on vibration-based techniques for structural identification. Through her research program she strives to develop robust approaches to structural health monitoring that can achieve a holistic, regional assessment of structural condition. She approaches this challenge by leveraging Bayesian methods for uncertainty quantification in structural identification, adapting information fusion techniques to develop regional assessment methods, and developing novel approaches to quantify infrastructure resilience to projected hazards.
 
Dr. Lund’s research approach melds controlled laboratory experiments, on-site data collection, computational modeling, and algorithmic development to generate robust approaches to structural condition assessment that are compatible with the uncertainty of the built environment. In association with this work, Dr. Lund promotes the development of open-source tools, demos, and training materials to facilitate the broad application of uncertainty quantification and system identification in structural engineering.
 
As a result of her work, Dr. Lund has been recognized by the Rising Stars in Computational and Data Science (2020) and the Philanthropic Education Organization (2018).

As a result of his work, Dr. Pandey has received several awards and honours. He was the recipient of the Premier’s Research Excellence Award for the Province of Ontario in 2003, as well as the UWaterloo Faculty of Engineering Distinguished Performance Award in 1999 and 2002. Additionally in 1998, Dr. Pandey was presented with the Governor General of Canada’s Gold Medal.

Professor Polak’s research is in the area of structural engineering and mechanics, constitutive modelling of materials, infrastructure retrofit and monitoring, and nonlinear finite element analysis. Her work has a particular focus on structural concrete; in this regard, some current projects are: punching shear in reinforced concrete slabs, non-destructive detection of damage, fiber reinforced polymers in construction, and 3-D printing of concrete. She works also in an interdisciplinary research group involved in analysis and testing polymeric materials used in construction. Her research includes both large scale laboratory testing and numerical analysis.

Scott Walbridge is the Chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Waterloo, where he has been teaching and conducting research since 2006. Prior to that, he studied at the University of Alberta and Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland and worked as a structural engineering consultant with Cohos Evamy (now Dialog) in Edmonton. Scott’s research focuses primarily on improving the safety and durability of metal structures in civil engineering applications. His research projects have investigated topics including: fatigue assessment and retrofitting of welded metal structures, encouraging the use of lighter, more corrosion resistant materials in new construction, and the development of new connection concepts to enable modular construction and reduce the costs associated with deconstruction and adaptive reuse. His research employs a broad range of tools, including laboratory testing, fracture mechanics, structural reliability theory, and life-cycle cost analysis. Currently, Scott is active on a number of CSA design code committees. In particular, he is chairing the aluminum structures technical subcommittee of the Canadian bridge design code (S6), as well as serving actively on the S6 technical subcommittee for steel structures, and the technical committees for the structural steel and aluminum welding codes (W59 and W59.2) and the aluminum structures design code (S157). In recent years he has served on the editorial boards for the IABSE journal: Structural Engineering International and the ASCE Journal of Bridge Engineering. Scott served as Program Director for Waterloo’s Architectural Engineering undergraduate program from 2018-2022.

Wei-Chau Xie is a Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering department at the University of Waterloo.

His research focuses on seismic risk analysis and design of critical engineering structures; reliability and safety analysis of engineering systems; dynamic stability of structures; structural dynamics and random vibration; nonlinear dynamics, and stochastic mechanics.

Professor Xie’s primary research pertains to the reliability, and safety analysis and design of nuclear power plants; on-shore and off-shore structures; and tall buildings that are subjected to loading caused by earthquakes, ocean waves, and wind turbulence. The objective of his research is to have a better understanding of the dynamic behaviour of structures, and to provide methods for safety and reliability analysis, and design of structures, machinery, and engineering systems as a whole.

As a result of his research and teaching, Professor Xie has received several awards such as the Distinguished Teacher Award from the University of Waterloo in 2007, and Teaching Excellence Award from the Faculty of Engineering in 2001. He also received the Distinguished Performance Award for outstanding contribution in teaching, scholarship and service in 2000, 2006, and 2013.

Professor Xie has written 2 textbooks: “Dynamic Stability of Structures” and “Differential Equations for Engineers”, both published by the Cambridge University Press. He has authored and co-authored over 100 referred journal publications.

He is a member of the Canadian Standards Association N289 Technical Committee on Seismic Design. He also serves as the Associate Editor or Member of Editorial Board of a number of international journals, such as the ASME Journal of Applied Mechanics, Mechanics Based Design of Structures and Machines, Journal of Nonlinear Systems and Applications, and Advances in Civil Engineering.

Professor Xu actively involved in the development of engineering standards on cold formed steel structures. He is a member of the Canadian Standards Association and serves for Technical Committees (CSA-S136) on Cold Formed Steel Structural Members, (CSA-G401) on Corrugated Steel Pipe Products, and (CSA-A660) on Certification of Manufactures of Steel Building Systems. He also sits on several International Standards Committees such as the American Iron and Steel Institute: Technical Committee for Standards on Steel Framing; the Chinese Construction Industrial Standard Committees (JG/T 182) on Steel Members of Assembled Residential Buildings with Light-Weight Steel Framing, and (JGJ/T XXX) on Technical Specification for Cold-Formed Thin-Walled Steel Multi-Storey Residential Buildings.

• Smart Structure
• Computer Vision
• Mixed (Augmented) Reality
• Machine Learning
• Robotics
• Big Data
• Nondestructive Testing
• Sensing Technologies

Jatin Nathwani, Professor and Ontario Research Chair in Public Policy for Sustainable Energy is the founding Executive Director of the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy (WISE) at University of Waterloo. He is cross appointed to the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Environment. In the Faculty of Engineering, he is cross appointed to the Department of Management Sciences and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Professor Nathwani joined the University of Waterloo in 2007.

Professor Nathwani is currently leading a ‘Global Change Initiative - Affordable Energy for Humanity’ to address the challenge of enabling universal access. The focus of this global collaborative effort involves leading universities around the world. The twin goals are to drive the scientific and technological innovations required for energy transitions to a cleaner ‘low carbon’ energy system and to deliver affordable energy to the vast proportion of humanity that has minimal access to electricity and modern fuels for basic needs.

Professor Nathwani’s research interests include energy policy developments, entrepreneurial business innovations for sustainable energy solutions, life-cycle risk management of energy systems, decision-frameworks for managing life safety risks and assessment of strategies and policy instruments for achieving environmental objectives. He has contributed to national and global strategic planning initiatives for sustainability of energy options, including smart energy networks and grids.

He serves on several boards at the provincial and national levels including the Ontario Smart Grid Forum, the Ontario Centre of Excellence (OCE) and the Council for Clean and Reliable Electricity (CCRE). He is the Scientific Advisor to the Waterloo Global Science Initiative (WGSI), a partnership of the Perimeter Institute and the University of Waterloo.

Professor Nathwani has appeared frequently in the media and has over 100 publications related to energy and risk management, including 7 books.

Dr. Potapenko’s research interests include elasticity and composite materials. He studies the integral and functional equations of continuum mechanics, and also analyzes cosserate solids. His current research surrounds both fundamental and applied aspects of linear elasticity theories and the implementation of computational methods for the solution of boundary-value problems arising from those theories. In addition, he conducts research on traditional engineering areas such as plates and shells and on classical elasticity inclusion problems. Dr. Potapenko hires graduate students who are interested in conducting research in the areas of solid mechanics and elasticity. He also has several publications about elasticity, which is his predominant area of research.

Professor Straube is a member of the CSA A371 Masonry Construction Standards Committee, the CAN/ULC S741-08 Standard for Air Barrier Materials, the American Society of Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers and the International Building Performance Simulation Association (IBPSA) Canada among others.