Biography
Armin Mehrabi, Ph.D., PE, MBA, F.ASCE, joined the Civil and Environmental Department of the College of Engineering and Computing in January 2017 as an associate professor. Mehrabi comes from Bridge Engineering Solutions (BES), where he served as the president and principal engineer for 12 years.
He specializes in inspection, evaluation, risk assessment, application of fiber-reinforced polymers (FRP), health monitoring and rehabilitation of cable-supported bridges. He has developed non-destructive evaluation and inspection methods for bridge structures and has been involved in inspection, evaluation, monitoring, life-cycle-cost analysis, and/or rehabilitation design for bridges, including more than 25 major cable-supported bridges in the US and abroad.
He is very successful in turning research results into practice. This includes co-inventing a laser-based cable monitoring system developed with the support of the Federal Highway Administration, for which he was awarded as one of the top 25 Newsmakers of the Year, 1997, by ENR.
Mehrabi has developed several guides for NDT inspection of bridges and elements, including a recent guide for inspection of FRP reinforced/strengthened concrete elements, the FRP RSC Guide. He has six US patents, five since joining FIU, and filed for five more in areas of bridge damage detection tools and concrete and steel connections.
Before establishing the BES firm, he worked and managed the largest privately owned structural laboratory in the US at CTLGroup. Mehrabi’s dissertation on seismic behavior of masonry infilled RC frames won the Most Outstanding Thesis Award by The Masonry Society in 1997. He has served as a consultant for construction support services, QC/QA and as a complex bridge specialist for bridges.
His research interests are in the areas of non-destructive evaluation of bridges, structural health monitoring, FRP applications, field and laboratory testing, bridge rehabilitation corrosion mitigation, cable-supported bridges, as well as analysis and modeling of masonry and R/C frames subject to lateral/seismic loading.
He is a registered professional engineer in several states. Mehrabi has carried out several research studies in the structural engineering field and has published more than 125 papers and articles on the subject of inspection and evaluation of bridges, non-destructive testing, FRP applications and laboratory testing and seismic analysis of masonry and infilled frames in professional journals, conference proceedings and professional magazines.
Mehrabi has published two books on ABC options for short span bridges and NDT for inspection of bridges and buildings, and edited another book on structural health monitoring and performance of structures.
Honors & Awards
- Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors, 2025
- Top Scholar: Research and Creative Activities, FIU, 2025
- Fellow, American Society of Civil Engineers, 2024
Awards & Honors
- Selected as a Senior Member of the Nominated for the National Academy of Inventors, 2025
- FIU Top Scholar Award for Research and Creative Activities, 2024-2025
- FIU Excellence Recognition for Publication, 2024
- Elected to ASCE Fellows, 2024
- Best Paper Award, 2023
- FIU- Tenure Award, 2023
- FIU CEC Service Award, 2022
- Outstanding Reviewer Award by ASCE Bridge Engineering Journal, 2009
- Listed in The Marquis Who’s Who Publication, 2000-2001
- Outstanding Paper Award of the North American Masonry Conference, 1999
- Awarded by Engineering News Record as one of the Top 25 Newsmakers of the Year, 1997
- Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award of The Masonry Society, 1997
Education
- MBA, International Business, Niagara University, 2010
- Ph.D., Civil Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder, 1994
- MS, Civil Engineering, University of Tehran, Iran, 1985