Jan. 29, 2019
MSU Professor Karim Chatti named Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers
Karim Chatti of Michigan State University has been named a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the country’s oldest national engineering society.
Chatti is a professor of civil and environmental engineering and the director of the University Transportation Center for Highway Pavement Preservation.
ASCE members elected to Fellow status have made celebrated contributions and developed creative solutions that have enhanced lives. Just 3 percent of society members hold this prestigious honor. This year’s ASCE Fellows will be recognized at the 2019 Outstanding Projects and Leaders (OPAL) Gala in Arlington, Virginia, on March 14.
Chatti is an internationally recognized expert in pavement engineering. His research focuses on mechanistic modeling of pavement systems, including pavement dynamics, vehicle-pavement interaction, pavement roughness, rolling resistance and vehicle operating costs, continuous structural health monitoring and pavement preservation.
Neeraj Buch, interim chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, said Chatti’s election as an ASCE Fellow is a fitting tribute to his professional accomplishments.
“Karim has an excellent research record in the area of pavement infrastructure and has also made significant contributions to professional practice,” Buch said. “Karim was instrumental in helping MSU become the first university in the country to have a University Transportation Center for the preservation of highway pavements, back in 2015,” he added.
Chatti joined MSU as a visiting assistant professor from 1993-1995, then worked as a consultant for Morrison-Knudsen Corp. and the National Highway Authority in Pakistan and STUDI Engineering in Tunisia from 1996-1997.
He joined MSU as a tenure-track faculty member in January 1998. He has advised more than 30 graduate students, including 12 PhDs, and has also mentored postdoctoral fellows and undergraduate student researchers.
He has been involved in 40 research projects, totaling $15 million, funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), Michigan and California DOTs, Federal Highway Administration, and the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (National Academies).
He has more than 160 peer-reviewed publications and 30 technical reports. Chatti was named editor-in-chief of the ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering – Part B pavements in 2018 after serving as associate editor for JTE-Part B and JTE for several years. He is also on the editorial board of the International Journal of Pavement Engineering.
He is past chair of the ASCE Transportation & Development (T&DI) Institute highway pavements committee, the ASCE T&DI Long Term Pavement Performance international data analysis contest, and has been an active member of several other ASCE and Transportation Research Board technical committees. He is also a founding member of the Academy of Pavement Scientists and Engineers, and a former board member of the International Forum for Road Transport Technology.
He received a PhD in civil engineering (1992) at the University of California-Berkeley, and master’s (1987) and bachelor’s degrees (1985) at Michigan State University.
Founded in 1852, ASCE represents more than 150,000 members worldwide.
