Oral Buyukozturk, Ph.D.

George Macomber Professor | MIT
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Director, Lab for Infrastructure Science and Sustainability

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room 1-281, 77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA, 02139
Email: obuyuk@mit.edu
Tel: 617.253.7186

Dr. Oral Buyukozturk is George Macomber Professor, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Director of the Laboratory for Infrastructure Science and Sustainability at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received his Ph.D. degree in Structural Engineering from Cornell University in 1970. He joined the MIT faculty in 1976 following six years of experience, including two years at United Engineers and Constructors in safety analysis and design of nuclear containment structures, and four years as Senior Research Scientist with Marc Analysis and Research Corporation (Brown University affiliate) and as Adjunct Associate Professor at Brown University in computational engineering analysis and development. Professor Buyukozturk’s research focuses on resilience, sustainability and intelligence of physical infrastructure. He has made seminal contributions to this field with scientific and technological output that is of integrative nature ranging from materials level through buildings to community/city scale. His research in this context has developed in an evolutionary fashion comprising three interconnected major thrust areas: (i) multiscale mechanics, modeling, and design of concrete materials and structures for resiliency, (ii) design of sustainable cement-based construction materials and systems with lower carbon print and improved performance, and (iii) infrastructure sensing and vision-based monitoring through data analytics and AI in engineering mechanics. He has made groundbreaking innovations in these fields with transformative impacts and significant contributions to the civil and infrastructure engineering field through advancing research, practice, and education.

His earlier work at MIT includes fundamental research and development in thermomechanical analysis of coal gasification vessels with ceramic linings, as well as his fundamental contribution in the evolution of segmental prestressed concrete bridge design and construction technology. He has conducted seminal research on fiber reinforced plastic (FRP) composites for structural rehabilitation. His early work at Marc Analysis/Brown University involved pioneering developments in concrete constitutive relations, and finite element analysis of complex structures with nonlinearities and progressive cracking. Computational concrete material models he developed are still in use today in major commercial general-purpose finite element programs. It is worth noting that his current pioneering work on computational multiscale concrete using molecular dynamics provides a fundamental basis for his earlier developments of phenomenological models of complex concrete behavior.

Professor Buyukozturk’s research represents an integrated evolutionary development towards infrastructure sustainability, resiliency, and intelligence through a bottom-up approach contributing to establishment of a new paradigm in infrastructure engineering as a basis for the design of new infrastructure systems and assessment/rehabilitation of existing infrastructure with technological, economic, and social impacts. He has published 430 technical papers in refereed journals and proceedings. He edited/co-edited and contributed to 20 books and published over 100 original technical research and development reports. He has initiated, supervised, and co-authored 14 patents in his field. He has made more than 230 plenary keynotes and invited lectures around the world. He served the profession through professional societies in different capacities with numerous technical committees, distinctive consulting, services to governments, major conference organization and scientific committee memberships.

His work has been recognized through multiple prestigious honors and awards including the George W. Housner Structural Control and Monitoring Medal from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE); the Golden Mirko Ros Medal of EMPA the Swiss Federal Research Laboratory for Materials Science and Technology; Elected Fellow of the Scotland’s National Academy of Science and Letters; the Distinguished Service and Leadership Award from the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at MIT; Fellow of American Concrete Institute (ACI); Fellow of American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE); Fellow of Engineering Mechanics Institute (EMI); ASNT (American Society of Nondestructive Testing) National Faculty Fellowship Awards (2008 & 2011); and various best paper awards with his students and postdocs. He recently received H. Adeli Award for Innovation in Computing (2021) and recognized in 2021 Mendeley metadata of citations coordinated by Stanford University as in the top 0.1% cited scientists worldwide. He recently was awarded (2023) the prestigious Mustafa Inan Special Award by his alma mater Istanbul Technical University (ITU) for excellence in science and engineering- top level ITU award bestowed on its faculty and alumni.

Professor Buyukozturk, in his distinguished career of over 40 years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), has made sustained and pioneering contributions to advancing world-wide infrastructure mechanics and materials research, sensing and monitoring, computing, and practice applicable to critical problems of civil infrastructure resilience, sustainability, and intelligence. He has advanced boundaries of knowledge and made significant impacts in his field with groundbreaking innovations and outstanding scholarly leadership in research, education, and professional service. With his impactful work he has enhanced scientific and engineering literature and educated and mentored outstanding leaders of academicians and professionals for the world.

Current members

  • Sama Taha (PhD candidate) - A novel design approach for developing sustainable concrete in autonomous manufacturing
  • Jackson Jewett (PhD candidate) - Mechanics and design of reinforced concrete for topology optimization
  • Jacob Morgan (MEng candidate) - Deep learning algorithms in nonlinear modeling of seismic behavior

Alumni

Maranda Johnston, BS
Carolyn Schaefer, BS
Joseph O'Connor, BS
Carrie McDonald, BS
Cheahuychou Mao, BS
Hilary Dryer, BS
Evripides Loukaides, BS
Veronica Cedillos, BS
Allison Dee, BS
Liz Labuz , BS
Naomi Stein, BS
Jose Cano, BS
Zheng Gong , BS
Xiumin Zeng, BS
OCody Edwards, BS
Anan Quan, BS
Hong C. Rhim, PhD
From left to right : Murat, Hao, Prof. Buyukozturk, Zhandos, James, Justin
From left to right : Prof. Buyukozturk, Justin, Rebecca, Young-Jin, Steven, Kiley, Zhandos, Denvid, Kunal
From left to right : Prof. Buyukozturk, Justin, Rebecca, Young-Jin
From left to right : Reza, Hao, Kiley, Prof. Buyukozturk, James, Murat, Justin
ITU-MIT Energy Based EQ Design Workshop
Kuwait-MIT Signature Project
IMAC 2014 Conference
IMAC 2015 Conference
Kuwait-MIT Signature Project Panel Meeting 2016
Kuwait-MIT Signature Project Panel Meeting 2015
Prof. Buyukozturk, Dr Denvid Lau (2012)
From left to right: Top: Ching, Tzu-Yang, Prof. Buyukozturk, Melda, Oguz, Bottom: Erdem, Alberto (2004)
From left to right : Alberto, Erdem, Oguz, Prof. Buyukozturk, Ching, Tzu-Yang (2006)
From left to right : Kunal, Prof. Buyukozturk, and Stephanie. Stephanie Chin (undergraduate student) was given the MIT Institute UROP award for distinguished achievement in research (2016)

Collaborators

Markus J. Buehler, PhD

Email: mbuehler@mit.edu
Markus Buehler is Jerry McAfee (1940) Professor of Engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT.

Sidney Yip, PhD

Email: syip@mit.edu
Sidney Yip is a Professor Emeritus of the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT.

M. Nafi Toksöz, PhD

Email: toksoz@mit.edu
Nafi Toksöz is Professor Emeritus and has been on the faculty of the Earth Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Department at MIT since 1965. He founded the Earth Resources Laboratory (ERL) in 1982 and served as its Director until 1998.

Thomas Herring, PhD

Email: tah@mit.edu
Tom Herring is a professor of Geophysics at Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), MIT.

Dirk Smit, PhD

Email: dirk.smit@shell.com
Dirk Smit is the Vice President, Research Strategy and Chief Scientist at Shell, and has been a visiting scientist in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetery Sciences (EAPS).

William T. Freeman, PhD

Email: billf@mit.edu
William T. Freeman is the Thomas and Gerd Perkins Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, and a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) there.

Fredo Durand, PhD

Email: fredo@csail.mit.edu
Fredo Durand is a professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).

Michael C Forde, PhD

Email: M.Forde@ed.ac.uk
Michael Forde is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Edinburgh. He is the Director od the Institue for Research in Engineering, University of Edinburgh and is also the editor of Construction & Building Materials.

Arif Masud, PhD

Email: amasud@illinois.edu
Arif Masud is John and Eileen Blumenschein Professor of Mechanics and Computations in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and the Department of Aerospace Engineering, Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He also holds joint appointment as Professor of Biomedical and Translational Sciences in the Carle-Illinois College of Medicine.

Michael Short, PhD

Email: hereiam@mit.edu
Michael Short is the Class of 42 Associate Professor in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT. He is also the Associate Director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center.

Oguz Gunez, PhD

Email: ogunes@itu.edu.tr
Oguz Gunes is an assistant professor in the Construction Materials Group of Istanbul Technical University.

Denvid Lau, PhD

Email: denvid.lau@cityu.edu.hk
Denvid Lau is a Professor in the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering at the City University of Hong Kong.

Hao Sun, PhD

Email: haosun@ruc.edu.cn
Hao Sun is an Associate Professor with tenure in the Gaoling School of Artificial Intelligence at Renmin University of China (RUC). He is also a Research Affiliate at MIT and an Affiliate Professor at Northeastern University.

Young-Jin Cha, PhD

Email: Young.Cha@umanitoba.ca
Young-Jin Cha is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at University of Manitoba.
Dr. Kunal Kupwade-Patil currently works as a Principal Scientist at W.R. Meadows in Hampshire, IL.

Debarshi Sen, PhD

Email: debarshi.sen@siu.edu
Debarshi Sen is an Assistant Professor in the School of Civil, Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Mehmet Ali Tasdemir, PhD

Email: tasdemir@itu.edu.tr
Mehmet Ali Tasdemir is a Professor Emeritus of the Faculty of Civil Engineering at Istanbul Technical University. He has served as the Dean of Faculty and Chairman of the Executive Board of the Central Laboratory until his retirement.

Ercan Yuksel, PhD

Email: yukselerc@itu.edu.tr
Ercan Yuksel is a Professor of Civil Engineering at the Istanbul Technical University (ITU).

Yilmaz Akkaya, PhD

Email: akkayayil1@itu.edu.tr
Yilmaz Akkaya is a Professor in the Construction Materials Division at the Faculty of Civil Engineering in Istanbul Technical University. He is currently at the Tashkent Architecture and Civil Engineering University in Uzbekistan, serving as the Dean of Faculty of Engineering.

Ahmet Anil Dindar, PhD

Email: adindar@gtu.edu.tr
Ahmet Anil Dindar is an assistant professor in the department of Civil Engineering at the Gebze Technical University (GTU), Gebze, Turkey.

Cem Yalcin, PhD, P.Eng

Email: yalcince@boun.edu.tr
Cem Yalcin is a Professor of Civil Engineering at Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey.

Ahmet Gullu, PhD

Email: ahmetgullu@txstate.edu
Ahmet Gullu is a postdoctoral scholar at Texas State University.

Ali Bumajdad, PhD

Email: a.bumajdad@ku.edu.kw
Ali Bumajdad is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Kuwait University.

Hasan Ali Kamal, PhD

Email: hkamal@kisr.edu.kw
Hasan Kamal is currently a Member of the Municipal Council of Kuwait, since 2013. He is the Chairman for the Capital Governorate committee.

Suad Al-Bahar

Email: sbahar@kisr.edu.kw
Suad Khalid Al-Bahar is a research scientist at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research.

Robert W. Haupt

Research Affiliate
Email: haupt@ll.mit.edu
Robert W. Haupt is a senior staff member at MIT Lincoln Laboratory.

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