Building Materials of the Future: Faculty Researches Innovative Construction Materials

“Motivated and empowered -- this is how I felt when I saw my name in the list of the world's most-cited researchers,” said Ezzeldin Yazeed, professor and interim chair of the Construction Engineering Department. “Indeed, citation for researchers is a crucial and direct assessment of the quality of their work.”

Last October, Yazeed was recognized as one of the top 2% most impactful scientists globally in the Stanford-Elsevier's Scopus database of the most cited scientists. The list is created by experts at Stanford University based on data from Elsevier’s Scopus and includes the top 2% scientists in 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields. 

“I did not plan or expect being on any list; however, I have to say that I always closely monitor my citation indices,” said Yazeed. “I know now that all the hours of hard work on my research were not in vain.”

Yazeed’s two most cited research papers are the ones “closest to [his] heart.” The first one, Behavior of Steel and (or) Composite Girders With Corrugated Steel Webs introduced design equations for a modern type of bridge composed of concrete and steel corrugated webs. Since it was published, the equations were almost referenced in all subsequent works by researchers worldwide as the “cornerstone” for their work.

In the second paper, A New Steel Anchorage System for Post-Tensioning Applications Using Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic Tendons, Yazeed developed a new end anchorage system for prestressing cables made of a new material that invaded structural engineering applications: carbon fiber reinforced polymers, which led to a U.S. patent. The new materials, fibre-reinforced plastics or polymers (FRPs), are more durable than steel and overcome the standard steel corrosion issue.

Linking research to practical experiences, Yazeed believes AUC perfectly complements both.

“AUC has a state-of-the-art structural engineering laboratory that tremendously helped me advanced my experimental work in many areas by testing full-scale models,” he said.

Among Yazeed’s research interests are engineering education and effective learning and teaching modules, including blended learning and flipped classes paradigm. Such topics have always been prevalent but are becoming more so as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impose its restrictions, enabling him to incorporate his research findings into his classrooms.

“I believe that engineering learning and teaching should be reformed; it’s becoming my leap of faith,” said Yazeed. “Among other paradigms, I have recently introduced flipped classes, blended learning and student-generated exams into some of my classes. I have published some outcomes of these paradigms, and I’m still experimenting with others. With the COVID-19 pandemic, these efforts proved to be priceless.”