Dr. Wael Zatar, professor and dean of the College of Information Technology and Engineering at Marshall University, has been named recipient of the 2015 West Virginia Outstanding Civil Engineering Educator of the Year award by the West Virginia section of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
This award is a prestigious one, given to an individual who is a distinguished Civil Engineering educator, tenured faculty in a West Virginia Engineering School, a resident of the state of West Virginia at the time of nomination and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).
Only two awards have been given in West Virginia, and both recipients were faculty members at Marshall University. Zatar was nominated by Shelley W. Porter, P.E., project manager of West Virginia American Water Company and a member of the WVASCE.
Zatar also is a past president of the West Virginia section of the ASCE.
Zatar serves as the director for the Multi-Modal Transportation and Infrastructure Consortium, Marshall University’s Transportation Center, Innovations and Asset Management of Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure Systems Program, and associate director of the Mid-Atlantic Transportation Sustainability Center.
He also has taught 12 undergraduate courses, four undergraduate laboratory classes, 11 graduate classes and two graduate laboratory classes, all of which were centered on analysis, behavior and design of concrete materials and structure.
Zatar has been a guest speaker for universities and institutions such as the University of Kentucky; North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina; the University of North Carolina in Charlotte; Cornell University; Santa Clara University; Savannah State University; West Virginia University; the University of Tokyo; Yokohama National University; Koichi University; Japan Concrete Institute; the University of Kyoto; the Japan Prestressed Concrete Engineering Association; and the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
He has received recognition from the American Society of Civil Engineers, PreCast/Prestressed Concrete Institute, American Concrete Institute, Japan Society of Civil Engineers, Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences, the Transportation Research Board, Structural Engineering Institute, International Institute for FRP in Construction, and the National Computational Science Institute.
Previously employed at the University of Kentucky and West Virginia University Tech, Zatar has been at Marshall University for the past 10 years. He served as the interim dean of the College of Information Technology and Engineering (CITE) for nine months. He later became the permanent dean of CITE in May of 2012. He has over 25 years of research and experience in the field of pre-stressed concrete structures, seismic design and retrofit of bridge structures which gained him national and international acclaim as well as awards from the United States, Japan, Canada and Mexico.
Zatar holds memberships in 24 professional organizations, including the American Society of Civil Engineers, and he has guided the research work of 15 postdoctoral researchers, a few hundred graduate students and 275 undergraduate students in projects focusing on advancing the knowledge of precast and pre-stressed concrete, for which he also received the 2009 Precast/Pre-stressed Concrete Institute’s Distinguished Young Educator Achievement Award.
His research interests include, but are not limited to, bridge management, construction materials, highway testing, advanced experimental destructive and non-destructive testing, reinforced and prestressed concrete, ultra-high performance concrete, fiber-reinforced polymer composite bridges, green and sustainable highway structures, and many more.
Zatar has more than 100 technical publications in book chapters, international journals, peer-reviewed conferences and technical reports. He currently is serving as a member of 31 national engineering/education committees. Additionally, Zatar has served as a reviewer and has participated in editorial boards of the American Society of Civil Engineers, American Concrete Institute, Prestressed Concrete Institute, Japan Concrete Institute and the Japan Society of Civil Engineers.