User:Aelnash/Professor Amr S. Elnashai

Current Positions Head, Civil and Environmental Engineering Department Bill and Elaine Hall Endowed Professor Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Director and Chair of Council on Global Engineering Initiatives College of Engineering University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Immediate Past Positions Director of ERC Mid-America Earthquake Center Director of NSF NEES@Illinois Simulation Facility University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

CAREER SUMMARY Amr Salah Elnashai, Fellow of the United Kingdom Royal Academy of Engineering, is the Head of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, and Bill and Elaine Hall Endowed Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. He was Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) multi-institution multi-disciplinary Mid-America Earthquake Center (2004-2009). He was also Director of the NSF Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulations (NEES) Facility at Illinois (2002-2009). A graduate of Cairo University, Amr obtained his MSc and PhD from Imperial College, University of London, UK. Before joining the University of Illinois in June 2001, Amr was Professor of Earthquake Engineering and Head of Division at Imperial College (1985-2001). He has been Visiting Professor at the University of Surrey, UK, since 1997. Other visiting professor appointments include the University of Tokyo, the University of Southern California (1990-1995) and the European School for Advanced Studies in Reduction of Seismic Risk, Italy, where he serves on the Board of Directors since its founding in 2000.

As Head of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, Amr is responsible for all academic and administrative affairs of the top-ranked department comprising 50 tenured and tenure-track faculty, 7 non-tenure track faculty, 60 staff, ~1300 students and a total budget of $30M per year. Amr developed the College of Engineering Strategy for Global Engagement in 2008, and continues to serve the Dean of Engineering as Director and Chair of the Council on Global Engineering Initiatives.

He is founder and co-editor of the Journal of Earthquake Engineering and editorial board member of several other journals, a member of the drafting panel of the European design codes, past chair of the UK earthquake engineering association, UK delegate to and past senior Vice-President of the European Association of Earthquake Engineering. He is the winner of the Imperial College Unwin Prize for the best PhD thesis in Civil and Mechanical Engineering (1984), the Oscar Faber Medal for best paper in the Institution of Structural Engineering, and two best paper medals from the International Association of Tall Buildings, Los Angeles.

Amr’s technical interests are multi-resolution distributed analytical simulations, network analysis, large-scale hybrid testing and field investigations of the response of complex networks and structures to extreme loads. He has produced more than 250 research publications, including over 120 refereed journal papers, many conference, keynote and prestige lectures (including the Nathan Newmark Distinguished Lecture), research reports, 2 books and several book chapters, magazine articles and earthquake field mission reports. He has been ranked top in the CEE Department at Illinois in terms of research funding for five years, with a total research income of about $25M over 9 years. Amr has successfully supervised 37 Doctoral and over 100 Master of Science theses. Many of his students hold significant positions in industry, academia and government in over 12 countries.

He has contributed to major projects for a number of international companies and other agencies such as the World Bank, GlaxoWellcome (currently GSK), Shell International, AstraZeneca, Minorco, British Nuclear Fuels, UK Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, Mott MacDonald, British Airport Authority, Alstom Power, the Greek and Turkish Governments and the National Geographic Society. He has recently completed research projects for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), State Emergency Management Agencies, Istanbul Municipality, US AID, Governments of Pakistan and Indonesia, amongst others. He has given interviews to CNN, Sky News, BBC, BBC World and the US Weather Channel. He has also contributed to a large number of newspaper articles in the UK (e.g. The Times, The Guardian, The Royal Institute of International Affairs) and the USA (e.g. St. Louis Observer and Chicago Herald). Amr enjoys scuba diving and holds certificates from the British Sub-Aqua Club and the US Professional Association of Diving Instructors. He enjoys reading on history, the history of painting and film-making.