Mohammed (Mo) Gabr

Mohammed (Mo) Gabr
Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor

Mohammed (Mo) Gabr is Professor of Civil Engineering at North Carolina State University specializing in Geotechnical/Geoenvironmental Engineering. He earned his Ph.D. at North Carolina State University in December 1987. He was then awarded a postdoctoral fellowship at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) for 1988 by the Royal Norwegian Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. Upon returning to the US, he worked as a Project Engineer for Woodward-Clyde Consultants until August 1991; at that time he joined West Virginia University (WVU). He has been Assistant and then Associate Professor(1995) at West Virginia University from 8/91 to 1/98 and Associate then Full Professor at North Carolina State University from 1/98 to present. Dr. Gabr spent the summers of 1992 and 1993 as a Research Faculty at the Waterways Experiment Station, Army Corps of Engineers. Dr. Gabr was the recipient of the 1996 Edmund Friedman Professional Recognition award by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). He was selected as the 1993 West Virginia Young Engineer of the Year by ASCE. He received the 1993-94 Outstanding College Researcher award and 1995-96 Outstanding College Teacher award from the College of Engineering and Mineral Resources (CEMR) at WVU. He received the 1994-95 J.C. Burnichal Teaching award and the 1994-95 Outstanding Advisor award from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at WVU. He was selected as a North Carolina State University Outstanding Teacher, received an Alumni Outstanding Teacher award, and was elected to the academy of Outstanding Teachers at the University in 2008. He was named "Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor" in 2009, a title retained while appointed as a member of the NC State faculty. He is the College of Engineering Recipient of the 2011 Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching. He is the former Chair of Transportation Research Board national committee on Physicochemical Properties of Soils (1997-2003), and ASCE Geo-Institute national committee on Geosynthetics (2000-2008.) Dr. Gabr served as editorial board member (EBM) of the ASCE Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering (2001-2006) and as Editor of the Environmental Geotechnics Section of Geotechnical News (1998-2004). He currently serves as EBM of ASTM Geotechnical Testing Journal and as Editor of the ASCE Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering. Dr. Gabr was elected as Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2000. He is a registered professional engineer in five states.

Dr. Gabr areas of expertise include soil improvement techniques, soil-structure interaction, in situ testing for characterization of geologic materials, and probabilistic assessment of earth structures limit states. As an educator, researcher, and consulting engineer, Mo has supervised more than 80 graduate students and numerous undergraduate students in more than 22 years at West Virginia University and North Carolina State University. His consulting experience included working on high-profile projects for industry and government in the US, Mexico, and Europe. These included offshore platforms in the North Sea, many waste management and containment facilities across the US as well as dams, levees, and mechanically stabilized earth structures in Mississippi, Washington, California, and Illinois. As a co-principal investigator, he has conducted 50 different research projects with a total research budget in excess of $8 million. Funding for his research has come from various sources including the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Highway Administration, and the North Carolina Department of Transportation. Together with his students, their research findings have been incorporated into industry including the Well Injection Depth Extraction (WIDE) approach for soil remediation, and his reseach findings on the use of waste by-products and properties of waste materials. His research on response of drilled shafts on slopes has promulgated many State Departments of Transportation’'s codes and has been broadly adopted by practicing engineers. His current research activities include working on the subject of soil scour with his students to develop a device he termed “In Situ Evaluation of Scour Probe (ISEP)” as well as performing research on the detection and stabilization of soft soils and establishment of performance-based limit states for protective earth structures subjected to severe coastal storms.