Ali Maher, Ph.D., is the director of CAIT and a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rutgers. Under his leadership, since 1998 CAIT has successfully competed to maintain its status as a USDOT-designated University Transportation Center (UTC), a network of internationally recognized research and education organizations that are a vital source for the professionals and leaders needed to meet our transportation needs now and in the future.

It was Maher’s vision to develop a center that would promote advancements in heavily utilized intermodal corridors and he was instrumental in forming a service network for members of the transportation infrastructure community at Rutgers.

Maher is a widely recognized expert, often tapped as a resource by industry and government agencies. His expertise spans the areas of ground improvement, soil dynamics, infrastructure asset management, nondestructive testing, environmental geotechnology, and new technology vehicles. Maher’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, USDOT, NJDOT, FHWA, DOE, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and other federal sponsors. Since CAIT’s inception, Maher has brought in more than $54 million of external research and technology transfer projects.

Maher has been a pioneer in promoting collaboration and building partnerships with other universities and public and private stakeholders to address our country’s most pressing transportation challenges. The $25.5 million FHWA Long-Term Bridge Performance (LTBP) program, which aims to improve bridge asset management, is just one example of such partnerships. Maher has been P.I. of LTBP since the project was competitively awarded to CAIT in 2008.

He is actively involved in a number of ASCE, ASTM, and International Society for Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure (ISHMII) committees. Maher serves as president of the U.S. Universities Council on Geotechnical Education and Research. He is a member of the editorial board of ASTM Geotechnical Testing Journal. He also received the TRB Executive Committee’s K.B. Woods Best Paper Award in 2008 and 2011.

Maher is a graduate of the University of Michigan, where he received a B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in 1978, 1983 and 1988 respectively.