I teach geotechnical and pavement engineering courses at WPI. My favorite teaching activities are helping students develop critical thinking skills and become independent learners and problem solvers for their future career in civil engineering.

My areas of research are in the interdisciplinary aspects of highway infrastructure engineering, with the overarching goal to advance the state of the art in sustainable highway infrastructure engineering. One of my recent research areas is developing more durable and sustainable asphalt concrete through an interdisciplinary approach. For instance, we have been working on bridging the linkage between chemistry and mechanical properties of asphalt binder through atomic force microscopy (AFM)-based techniques.

Another area I work on is synthesizing and characterizing a new type of cementitious material—inorganic geopolymers from abundant industrial and energy wastes (e.g., fly ash, red mud, and rice husk ash) which will provide an economical and “greener” alternative to Portland cement for highway construction.