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The University of New Mexico

Materials

Rafi Tarefder

Dr. Rafi Tarefder is a Professor in the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental  Engineering and a Regent’s Lecturer at the University of New Mexico. His research work covers pavement materials and system including pavement design, life cycle assessment and decision analyses for optimum maintenance, recycling and renewal; geomechanics specifically moisture movement, thermal and freeze-thaw force assessment; advanced modeling including molecular dynamics, finite element modeling, neural networks, non-parametric regressions, system dynamics, and back calculation, use of nanotechnologies including atomic force microscopy; nanoindentation, infrared and nondestructive technologies.  Dr. Tarefder has (co)authored more than 183 peer-reviewed journal articles and 232 refereed conference papers.  He has also (co)edited 13 books, book chapters, and journal special issues, and organized several conferences and symposia.

Currently, He serves as an Associate Director of two federally funded transportation centers: Southern Plain Transportation Center (SPTC), and Safety and Operations of Large-Area Rural/Urban Intermodal Systems (SOLARIS). He is the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Advances in Civil and Environmental Engineering, Associate Editor of the ASCE Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering and Lead Editor of IACMAG Newsletter. He is the Chair of the annual Paving and Transportation Conference in New Mexico, and a registered Professional Engineer (P.E.) in the state of New Mexico and Idaho. He has received several awards for his scholarship including the prestigious NSF CAREER award, Regent’s Award, John Booker Excellent Medal.


Madura Pathirage 
I lead the Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics research group at UNM. My group works on four research areas: (i) analytical and computational methods in fracture mechanics, (ii) fracture mechanics in nuclear and extreme environments, (iii) injury biomechanical fracture mechanics, and(iv) fracture mechanics in novel cementitious composites.

Maryam Hojati
Dr. Maryam Hojati is an assistant professor in Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at the University of New Mexico (UNM). She received her Ph.D. in 2017 from the Pennsylvania State University. During her academic experience, she worked on a variety of research studies that equipped her with the skills to conduct diverse research in material, structure, and application of additive manufacturing in construction. She was involved in multiple phases of the NASA Centennial Challenge from 2016 to 2019 NASA to build a 3D-printed habitat for deep space exploration. She joined the CCEE department at UNM in Aug. 2019 and established the Advanced Sustainable Construction (ASC) Lab, leveraging her prior experience setting up a 3D-printing lab. Working alongside her team, she focused on designing and developing innovative sustainable materials, adapting them for additive manufacturing (AM) technology. Her research addresses three critical areas in the construction industry, including (1) designing and constructing resilient infrastructures (2) building affordable houses, and (3) designing sustainable construction materials and practices on the earth and beyond.