The faculty is the heart of our educational program. Four of the five faculty members hold doctorate degree in Civil Engineering or related areas. The fifth faculty member holds a masters degree in Civil Engineering, complimented by thirty years of industry experience. Three faculty members are registered professional engineers in the state of Alabama and other states. The majority of the design courses are taught by registered faculty. The faculty members are actively involved in research and/or professional activities. The following is a brief biographic sketch of each faculty member.

Dr. Pabitra K. Saha

Professor and Chair
Structural Engineering
Email: pabitra.saha@aamu.edu
Ph: (256) 372-4145
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Dr. Pabitra K. Saha, P.E., professor and chair of the department joined in 1982. He teaches mostly structural engineering and foundation engineering courses. He has a Ph.D. in structural engineering with specialization in Finite Element Analysis and soil-structure interaction. His areas of interest include Structural Analysis and Design - Concrete, Steel and Timber, Structural Composites; Tunnel Linings; Underground Storage Structures. He has about 29 years of experience in teaching and research and 6 years of experience from the industry. He has sucessfully won and completed several research contracts and grants. He has been instrumental in the development of the civil engineering laboratories especially through the NSF and Title III grants.

Dr. Goang S. Liaw
Professor

Environmental Engineering
Email: goang.liaw@aamu.edu                                    
Ph: (256) 372-5566

Dr. Goang S. Liaw, Professor of Department of Civil Engineering, joined the department in 1980. He is specialized in environmental engineering and water resources.  His main teaching responsibilities are in the areas of Environmental Engineering, engineering mechanics, hydrogeology, and fluid mechanics. Dr. Liaw has approximate twenty-six years of college teaching experience, and has more than twenty years of research and management experience in university, government, and military research projects. He has been successful in proposal writing and publications. He has planned, directed and executed several research projects at AAMU with contract values in excess of two million dollars, and has authored over 40 technical articles, reports, and papers based on his research work. His current environmental research interests include applying nanotechnology in water and air purifications, spatial database of contaminants, numerical modeling of surface and groundwater contamination, and environmental education. Dr. Liaw has been heavily involved in Computational Fluid Dynamics for many years.  He has a strong background in the numerical modeling and analyses of fluid flow.  He has received many research projects in the areas of low density viscous nozzle flow, hypersonic viscous flow, and crystal growth modeling through NASA, US Air Force, US Army and NSF. Dr. Liaw is the recipient of the 2006 NASA Administrator's Fellowship Program (NAFP) award.

Dr. Nesar Ahmed

Professor

Geotechnical Engineering
Email: nesar.ahmed@aamu.edu
Ph: (256) 372-4149

Dr. Nesar U. Ahmed, P.E., Professor of Civil Engineering, joined the department in 1988. He is specialized in geotechnical engineering, reinforced concrete design, and structural steel design. His main teaching responsibilities are in soil mechanics and foundation design. He has taught graduate courses part-time at the University of Alabama in Huntsville for the past seven years. Dr. Ahmed has been a consultant to industry for the past eight years. Dr. Ahmed has the Professional Engineer license from several states.

Mr. James Foreman
Assistant Professor
Email: james.foreman@aamu.edu
Ph: (256) 372-4147

Mr. James W. Foreman, P.E., Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering, joined the department in 1991. He has four years full time and five years part time in Highway Engineering and Surveying.  His experience includes both office engineering and fieldwork. He has taught Surveying for nine years and was involved in a Surveying project for the Bureau of Mines for one and one half years. Mr. Foreman has a minor in Hydraulics. He has taught Fluid Mechanics, Hydraulic Design, and Hydrogeology for four years. He has approximately fifteen years working in the field of hydraulics. This experience was mainly in the design and use of hydraulic shaker systems for earthquake simulation.

Dr. Sudip Bhattacharjee
Assistant Professor

Transportation (Pavement) Engineering
Email: sudip(dot)bhattacharjee(at)aamu(dot)edu
Ph: (256) 372-4148

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Dr. Sudip Bhattacharjee has joined the department in Fall 2006 as Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering. Dr. Bhattacharjee has a Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), Massachusetts. His main area of research is the characterization of pavement materials, such as the virgin and recycled Hot Mix Asphalt  (HMA), through laboratory tests and theoretical modeling. He has performed research under externally funded projects in the area of accelerated pavement testing, material characterization, analysis and design of flexible pavements and application of finite element and continuum damage mechanics. His research in pavement materials has established a new protocol of fatigue characterization of HMA using scaled accelerated loading equipment. Currently he is involved in transportation research funded by National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) at the University of New Hampshire. His main areas of teaching include aspects of pavement materials, design of highway and airport pavements, solid mechanics, application of damage mechanics and fatigue in transportation materials, finite element analysis techniques and theories related to granular materials.