Research Areas:
Concrete technology, material science, mechanics and structural engineering

Prof. Surendra P. Shah received his PhD from Cornell University and held faculty positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois at Chicago prior to joining Northwestern University in 1980s. He was the Walter P. Murphy Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering before he retired from Northwestern University. He was also the Founding Director of the pioneering National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center for Advanced Cement-Based Materials. In 2019, he moved to the University of Texas at Arlington as the Presidential Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering Structures and Materials and the Director of the Center for Advanced Construction Materials. He is currently a Professor of Civil Engineering and of Materials Science and Engineering there.

Prof. Shah’s research interests include fracture, fiber reinforced composites, non-destructive evaluation, transport properties, processing, rheology, nanotechnology, and use of solid waste materials. He has co-authored three publications, Fiber-Reinforced Cement-Based Composites (1992), High Performance Concrete: Properties and Applications (1994) and Fracture Mechanics of Concrete (1995), published more than 400 journal articles, and edited more than twenty books. He was the editor-in-chief of the International Union of Laboratories and Experts in Construction Materials, Systems and Structures (RILEM)'s journal Materials and Structures.

Prof. Shah is a Member of the US National Academy of Engineering, a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a Corresponding Member of the Academy of Athens in the Section of Sciences. He is also a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering and the US National Academy of Inventors. He has received many awards including the Swedish Concrete Award, the American Concrete Institute’s Arthur R. Anderson Award, the RILEM Robert L’Hermite Medal, the ASTM’s Sanford E. Thompson Award, the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Charles Pankow Award for Innovation, and the Engineering News-Record's News Maker Award. He was named one of the Most Influential People in the industry by Concrete Construction Magazine.