Organized by the College of Engineering (CEN) at American University of Sharjah (AUS), the Third International Conference on Infrastructure Management, Assessment and Rehabilitation Techniques (ICIMART’19) commenced today, March 5, at the university. Academics and industry experts from around the world are taking part in the conference which will focus on innovation, sustainability and infrastructure resilience.

The three-day event provides a platform for engineers and scientists engaged in research and development to present their latest work on infrastructure resilience, management, assessment and rehabilitation techniques. The conference includes distinguished keynote lectures and special technical sessions covering the state-of-the-art advances made in the field.

Professor Kevin Mitchell, Acting AUS Chancellor, and Dr. Juan Sanchez, AUS Provost and Chief Academic Officer, welcomed the participants and stressed the importance of such a timely conference.

Welcoming the delegates to the conference, Dr. Naif Darwish, Professor of Chemical Engineering and Acting Dean of CEN, said:

“I take great pride in welcoming such eminent names from across the world to our campus this year. At CEN, we firmly believe in delivering value through landmark conferences and forums that offer unique opportunities for participants to exchange knowledge, practice networking, discuss ground-breaking research in technology- and innovation-related fields.”

Three internationally renowned experts are addressing the conference this year as keynote speakers These include Dr. Nenad Gucunski, Professor and Chairman of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rutgers University and the Director of Infrastructure Condition Monitoring Program at Rutgers’ Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation (CAIT); Dr. B. F. Spencer, who currently holds the Nathan M. and Anne M. Newmark Endowed Chair in Civil Engineering and is the Director of the Newmark Structural Engineering Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and Dr. Mahmoud Reda Taha, Professor, Regents’ Lecturer and Chair of the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering at the University of New Mexico.

Topics discussed at the conference included: infrastructure resilience, infrastructure rehabilitation, accelerated rehabilitation techniques, decision support systems, lifecycle cost analysis, construction materials recycle and reuse, infrastructure assessment and condition evaluation, smart materials and structures, health monitoring of critical infrastructure, advanced infrastructure sensing technologies, signal and image processing for infrastructure assessment, substructure rehabilitation, superstructure rehabilitation, new rehabilitation materials, and advanced rehabilitation methods and strategies.

The conference has been sponsored by Parsons, fib, and Society of Engineers—UAE.

“Parsons is delighted to sponsor and participate in ICIMART’19 as part of our ongoing partnership with the AUS’s School of Engineering. We believe the cooperation between industry and the worlds of education and research to be a key performance driver to our success, and we look forward to sharing our experience, insights and solutions relating to infrastructure management in the Middle East,” said Garold Adams, Parsons President, MEA.