Mahmoud Reda Taha, Ph.D., P.E., F.ASCE, a Distinguished Professor, Regents’ Lecturer, and chairman of the Department of Civil, Construction & Environmental Engineering (CCEE) at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, has been named a Fellow by the ASCE Board of Direction.
During the past six years as department chairman and the founding director of the UNM Resilience Institute, Taha has cultivated a cultural change in his community, bringing together both national and local partners and department alums to support and engage in the innovative endeavors he initiated and led to upgrade the UNM CCEE facilities to state-of-the-art facilities.
Taha has been a significant contributor to the areas of nanotechnology, polymer concrete and composites, 3D-printed construction materials, and infrastructure resilience. His research aims to bridge the gap between materials and structures by inventing smart green materials that meet challenging performance expectations in future structures. He has authored or coauthored more than 350 papers in refereed scholarly journals and conference proceedings; he also has nine issued U.S. patents and has presented his research work with his team worldwide. He was the chairman and organizer of the International Congress on Polymers in Concrete (ICPIC 2018), held in Washington, D.C., in May 2018.
Currently, he is working with his research team on research and development of CO2-based materials for 3D-printed concrete and composites, and nano-based sealants for wellbore integrity and geothermal energy. He is also investigating the use of 3D printing as an emerging technology for improving infrastructure resilience. Throughout his career, Taha has attracted over 70 research grants and projects, with research funding exceeding $13 million and from almost all national funding agencies, including NSF, DOD, DOE, and DOT and the National Labs.
Taha is a Fellow of American Concrete Institute, chairman of ACI Committee on Polymers and Adhesives in Concrete, and associate editor of ASCE’s Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering and Journal of Natural Hazards Review. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the ASCE Infrastructure Resilience Division, co-chair of ASCE Committee on Emerging Technologies, and a Board Member of the International Congress on Polymers in Concrete. He is also a cofounder of TS-Nano Sealants LLC, a startup company on nano-based sealant technology.
He has contributed greatly as a dedicated faculty member teaching structural and materials engineering undergraduate and graduate courses. He has mentored hundreds of undergraduate students and more than 50 graduate students toward their master’s and doctorate degrees. He also served as a visiting professor at Sejong University in South Korea and the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.
Taha is a bridge engineer by training and has 20 years of professional experience as a practicing licensed professional engineer in the U.S. and Canada. He has participated in the design of numerous structures in the U.S., Canada and worldwide. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in structural engineering from Ain Shams University in Cairo and his Ph.D. from the University of Calgary, Canada, in 2000.
