Rafi Muhanna

Muhanna is an associate professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. He obtained his B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Damascus in 1972, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in the area of Solid and Structural Mechanics in 1976 and 1979, respectively from the Higher Institute for Structure and Architecture, Sofia, Bulgaria. He joined the faculty at the University of Damascus, Syria in 1980, and has also served on the faculty at Case Western Reserve University, Ohio and the University of Maryland (1991-2000). Muhanna has won a number of international prizes, among them: the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, one of the most prestigious international architectural awards, for the his masonry shell system without steel reinforcement (1992); the Golden Prize of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), for the best displayed patent at the International Fair of Damascus (1988); and the Special Prize of the United Nations HABITAT (1989). Muhanna's research activity is in the general area of solid and structural mechanics that includes uncertainty modeling, structural reliability, computational reliability, shell theory, and optimization of masonry building materials in structural systems. This research activity has culminated in the development of the new methods for reliable engineering computing, establishment of the Center for Reliable Engineering Computing (REC), and hosting the bi-annual international NSF sponsored workshop on Reliable Engineering Computing since 2004.