A pair of civil engineering professors from West Virginia University have been named American Society of Civil Engineers Structural Engineering Institute Fellows. Hota GangaRao and Udaya Halabe were selected to receive the prestigious designation, which is given to a select group of leaders in the profession.

GangaRao, the Maurice A. and Jo Ann Wadsworth Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at WVU, serves as the director of the Constructed Facilities Center at WVU. Established in 1988, the Center serves a number of federal and state agencies, conducting interdisciplinary research in the areas of composite materials, diagnostic tools, design procedures, and structural components. He also directs the Center for the Integration of Composites into Infrastructure, a National Science Foundation industry/university cooperative research center, founded in 2009. The mission of CICI is to accelerate the adoption of polymer composites and innovated construction material into infrastructure and transportation applications through collaborative research.

“I am honored and even humbled to receive this recognition,” said GangaRao. “I will work even harder to maintain the spirit in which it was awarded.”

Halabe has more than 25 years of research and field testing experience in the area of structural engineering and nondestructive testing of civil engineering structures and materials. He has received the designation of Fellow from ASCE and the American Society for Nondestructive Testing and in 2012 he received the James M. Robbins National Excellence in Teaching Award presented by Chi Epsilon, the National Civil Engineering Honor Society. This past year, he created an SEI Graduate Student Chapter at WVU and serves as its faculty adviser.

“My association with SEI-ASCE has helped to enhance my teaching and outreach,” said Halabe. “I have been able to offer free SEI professional webinars to the students in my senior design class, and the graduate students and faculty members associated with SEI-GSC have provided structural engineering and nondestructive testing demonstrations to high school students in West Virginia as a part of the Statler College’s outreach efforts. I am deeply honored to receive this recognition.”

Founded in 1852, ASCE represents more than 120,000 civil engineers worldwide and is America’s oldest national engineering society. SEI is a community of more than 25,000 structural engineers created to serve the unique needs of the structural engineering community while influencing change on broader issues that shape the entire civil engineering community.

To be considered for the grade of fellow, an SEI member must be a licensed professional or structural engineer, hold an active SEI member grade and have a minimum of 10 cumulative years of experience. Advancement to the fellow grade also requires significant career accomplishments, professional distinction and the endorsement of prominent civil engineers. There are currently only 153 members of SEI that have been selected to receive the fellow designation.

-WVU-

mcd/04/30/14

CONTACT: Mary C. Dillon, Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources
304.293.4086, Mary.Dillon@mail.wvu.edu

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