The University of Houston College of Technology Construction Management Department welcomes Associate Professor, Dr. Ahmed Senouci who joined the faculty this semester. Dr. Senouci earned his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison after receiving his M.S. in Construction Engineering and Management. In addition, he holds a M.S. in Structural Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a civil engineering degree from the National Polytechnic School of Algiers, Algeria.
Prior to joining UH, Dr. Senouci served as Professor of Civil and Architectural Engineering at Doha, Qatar and held visiting professor positions at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois and Purdue University at Indianapolis. His teaching and research experience includes the University of Illinois, Ohio State University and Oregon State University.
Senouci has published in numerous industry journals. Extensively experienced in optimization modeling, for the scheduling of construction projects, his paper, “Optimizing Post-Disaster Reconstruction Planning for Damaged Transportation Networks,” won the Best Journal Paper Award, published Journal of Construction Engineering and Management in 2010.
He is a noted expert in innovative asset management for onshore and offshore oil and gas pipelines, having developed performance models that optimize the lifetime planning of maintenance and rehabilitation of oil and gas pipelines.
His current research centers on asset management models for sustainable water infrastructures, where using the web as a platform will increase the effectiveness of organizational communication among various layers of management in the municipalities by accelerating decision-making processes.
Senouci has a proven record of accomplishment of research in sustainable construction materials and environmentally friendly solutions, such as replacing coarse and fine aggregates with recycled rubber tires, which ultimately will reduce the stockpiling and disposal of tires.
His research interest in sustainable building and new “green materials” is continuing through exploration of nanotechnology-based materials such as carbon nanofibers and carbon nano-tubes in cementitious materials to improve their tensile strength and ductility. In 2011, the Qatar Foundation awarded a $901,000 grant to further his research in this area.
New to Texas and the University of Houston, Dr. Senouci looks forward to challenging students with projects that will focus on learning with hands on experience and design. “My hope is to guide students in their acquiring deep knowledge of the construction aspects of steel design and to develop their understanding of the terminology that will improve their contributions to architectural and design teams,” said Dr. Senouci. Dr. Senouci can be reached at asenouci [at] central.uh.edu (asenouci[at]central[dot]uh[dot]edu).