Amir Behzadan, Director of C-PRIME

Amir H. Behzadan, PhD, A.M.ASCE

Since Fall 2015, I have been an Associate Professor of Construction Management at Missouri State University (MSU). Prior to joining MSU, I served as an Assistant Professor of Construction Engineering at the University of Central Florida (UCF) (2009-15), and an Assistant Professor of Construction Technology at the New York City College of Technology (2008-9) of the City University of New York (CUNY).

I obtained my PhD degree (2008) in Civil Engineering (specializing in Construction Engineering and Management) and my MEng degree (2005) in Construction Engineering and Management both from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. I also hold a BEng degree in Civil Engineering (2002) from Sharif University of Technology in Iran. I have several years of construction industry experience working as field engineer and quality inspector in projects ranging from commercial to high-rise buildings.

My research interests include construction data mining and analytics, process simulation, augmented reality visualization, and collaborative education. My projects have been funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), Engineering Information Foundation (EiF), Bentley Systems, and Hinkley Center for Solid and Hazardous Waste Management (HCSHWM).

My teaching interests include core construction and civil engineering topics. At the undergraduate level, I have taught in areas such as surveying and instrumentation, construction methods, construction contracts, structural design, soils and foundations, mechanics of materials, and statics. At the graduate level, I have developed and taught courses in decision-making under uncertainty, data mining, and process simulation. I have received multiple teaching awards including the ASEE Outstanding New Teaching Award (2012), Distinguished New Faculty Award from the International Academy for the Scholarship of Learning Technology (2012), UCF Teaching Incentive Program (TIP) Award (2015), and Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award (2014) from UCF College of Engineering and Computer Science. In 2009, I attended and completed the requirements of the ASCE ExCEEd Workshop in West Point, NY.

I have also served the professional community in multiple capacities. Most Notably, I am currently the secretary of two key committees under the ASCE Technical Council on Computing and Information Technology (TCCIT). I have also been serving as a Specialty Editor for the ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management since 2009. Between 2010 and 2015, I served as the Faculty Advisor of the ASCE-UCF Student Chapter with more than 100 active due-paying members. During this time, I received several society-level recognitions for my contributions to the profession including three consecutive Faculty Advisor of the Year Awards (2013, 2014, 2015) from the ASCE FL Section, and the Outstanding Faculty Advisor Award from ASCE Region 5 (Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana) in 2014.