FIU has designated five university programs as “preeminent,” a recognition of high-caliber, collaborative work that generates unique learning opportunities, pioneering research and meaningful engagement with the external community while expanding the university’s financial base. This is the first in a series of articles that explores these programs in greater depth. Click here to view an interactive chart explaining each preeminent program.

When Atorod Azizinamini stood in the White House in 2015 to be honored as a “Champion of Change,” he formally accepted a title that many agree has described him for years. With four patents and more than 200 articles to his credit, the chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering boasts a long history of impacting his field, first by working in industry and then spending two highly productive decades at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, before landing at FIU in 2011.

His expertise: building bridges fast.

“The best way I can describe him is as an innovator,” says Monica Starnes, a senior program officer at the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. She worked with Azizinamini when Congress established a $232 million highway research program in 2006. Azizinamini was the principal investigator leading an initiative that resulted in his developing the definitive government guide for enhancing the service life of bridges through design, construction and maintenance.

Nebraska’s state bridge engineer Mark Traynowicz praises the past work between his professional staff and Azizinamini as key to “[elevating] Nebraska as one of the leaders in bridge design and bridge engineering in the country. With his help, through research, he put us on the map.”

Azizinamini shows no sign of slowing down in his drive to make impactful changes that benefit society — nor can the nation afford to let him.

More than 25 percent of the country’s 600,000-plus bridges are older than the 50 years for which they were optimally designed. Data from the 2016 National Bridge Inventory indicates that nearly 56,000 bridges are “structurally deficient” — deemed safe for travel but in need of renovation or replacement — and another 74,000-plus are “functionally obsolete” — inadequate for current traffic demands or unable to accommodate oversized or emergency vehicles.

Full speed ahead

Azizinamini arrived at FIU with the goal of establishing a federally funded center to make aging infrastructure safer. The university quickly provided $50,000 in seed money to jumpstart the effort. Fellow faculty, industry professionals and a growing number of graduate students signed on.

Then in 2013, the U.S. Department of Transportation put out a call to universities in a move to build increased collaboration with the Federal Highway Administration and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

“We heard that the secretary of transportation wanted new ideas, new innovations, something that can solve the problems and the challenges we have with the transportation system,” Azizinamini says. He prepared a winning $4.5 million proposal (and earned the federal designation “University Transportation Center”) around “accelerated bridge construction.” ABC, as it’s known, uses cutting-edge techniques that minimize onsite construction to produce environmentally friendly bridges that are safer and longer lasting than those built under traditional methods.

Azizinamini understands well the negative impacts associated with traditional bridge construction: traffic delays, decreased mobility and work zone fatalities (resulting from more than 67,500 related crashes in 2013 alone), not to mention financial losses to local businesses and commuter frustration.

“If you didn’t have alternative technology, that would be something,” he says, “but we have the solutions.”

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