Keynote Speakers

Marwan Nader

Marwan Nader, Ph.D., P.E., has over 30 years of experience in all phases of bridge research, design and construction engineering, Currently he is Senior Vice President and Technical Director for the Bridge Line of Business at T.Y. Lin International and a member of the firm’s Board of Directors. Some of his most recent works include some remarkable structures such as the New Champlain Bridge over the St. Lawrence River in Montréal, Canada, the new self-anchored suspension span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, the Seismic Retrofit of the Golden Gate Bridge in California, the Kwang-Ahn Bridge in South Korea, the Soyo-Cabinda Transportation Link in the Republic of Angola and the Bandra-Worli Bridge in India. 

Dr. Marwan is prolific author of multiple technical articles in peer-reviewed journals, as well as a regular presenter at National and International conferences. Dr. Nader serves on the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies’ Committee on Steel Bridges and is Chair of the Structural Engineering Institute’s Cable Supported Bridge Committee for ASCE. 

His specialties include wind and seismic engineering, fields in which he could develop skills during his work at West Wind Laboratories in Monterey, California, where he investigated the wind performance of bridges using wind tunnels and at URS Corporation in San Francisco, California, where he worked on the seismic retrofit of nuclear power plants. 

In 2016, the International Association for Bridge Maintenance and Safety (IABMAS) honored Marwan with the IABMAS Senior Prize in recognition of his significant contributions to bridge engineering. Marwan also won the ASCE Arthur M. Wellington Award in 2004. He has been honored by both the American University of Beirut (2014) and the University of California, Berkeley (2015). 


Maria Garlock

Dr. Maria Garlock is a Professor at Princeton University in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and also the co-Director of the Architecture and Engineering Program.  She is the recipient of awards such as the 2012 President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching and the 2016 T.R. Higgins Lectureship Award, which “recognizes an outstanding lecturer and author whose technical paper or papers… are considered an outstanding contribution to the engineering literature on fabricated structural steel.”  She is also a Fellow of the American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE) Structural Engineering Institute (SEI), which “…distinguishes members as leaders and mentors in the profession.”

Dr. Garlock is also a Professional Engineer, having earned her license while working for Leslie E. Robertson Associates of New York City as a structural engineer. 

 

She had the opportunity to participate in the design of many interesting buildings including several skyscrapers.  Dr. Garlock received her Bachelors of Science degree from Lehigh University, a Masters of Science degree from Cornell University, and a Ph.D. degree from Lehigh University.

Her research aims to bridge the gap between academia and practice, both as related to advancing the knowledge in structural engineering and as related to the education of future engineers.  She takes creative and innovative approaches to find structural solutions, in particular for extreme loading scenarios such as earthquakes, fires, and storm surges.  She studies such loading scenarios both as isolated and as combined multi-hazard events. 

In addition to multi-hazard resistant structural design, Dr. Garlock studies the best examples of structural designs of the present and past, which encompass the ideals of efficiency, economy, and elegance.  She has co-authored a book on the subject (Felix Candela: Engineer, Builder, Structural Artist), written several book chapters, and co-curated several exhibitions with scale models and instructional displays that teach about exemplary structural engineering designs.  She has recently developed two online courses (MOOCs) on the theme of “The Art of Structural Engineering”, and one of them was recently ranked #7 out of 2,400+ MOOCs launched in 2019.

Dr. Garlock is actively involved in the ASCE professional society as a member of SEI’s Executive Committee.  In the past, she served as Chair of ASCE’s Special Design issues and Chair of ASCE’s Fire Protection Committee.  During her period as Chair of the Fire Protection Committee, she directed the work of the committee on an Appendix to ASCE-7 on “Performance-Based Design Procedures For Fire Effects On Structures.”

Dr. Garlock’s research on multi-hazard resistant structural design, the art of engineering, and education has been published in many journal papers, conference proceedings, and books.  She is frequently invited to lecture on such subjects within the U.S. and abroad.  Dr. Garlock is also serves several journals such as Associate Editor of the ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering (2010 – 2014) and a member of the editorial board of the new journal Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure.


Ulrike Kuhlmann

 

Ulrike Kuhlmann is professor for steel, timber and composite structures and head of the Institute of Structural Design at Universität Stuttgart since 1995 after having 7 years of industrial experience. Since 1998, she is a partner in the consulting office ‘Kuhlmann-Gerold-Eisele’ in Nellingen. From April 2013 to March 2017, she was dean of the faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stuttgart University.

As a member in numerous expert committees, she is actively involved in European Standardisation work and chair of the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) Technical Committee TC 250/SC3 Design of Steel Structures.

Her research includes investigations on subjects as stability, fatigue and on all kinds of joints and connections.