Background
Dr. Issa Mahmoud Issa holds a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Texas A&M University, a Master of Science in Structural Engineering from the University of Houston, and a bachelor’s in civil engineering from Jordan University of Science and Technology. He is a licensed Professional Engineer in Texas and has over 15 years of multidisciplinary experience in civil infrastructure, materials testing, and pavement engineering.
Dr. Issa’s expertise spans a broad range of sectors, including structural design, pavement engineering, and data-driven infrastructure evaluation. His most recent experience includes conducting forensic investigations and pavement design for a statewide Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) pavement design project, as well as managing and overseeing quality control of materials testing in accordance with TxDOT and ASTM specifications. He also contributed to obtaining and maintaining CCRL, USACE, and A2LA lab accreditations. Prior to that, he held a position as a transportation data scientist at the FDOT concrete test road, a full-scale, 2.5-mile real-world test facility, where he managed data collection from pre-installed instrumentation and non-destructive evaluation techniques such as Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD), profiler, and Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), and utilized the data to initiate research efforts.
His research has contributed to state DOT initiatives, published technical reports, and innovations in the testing and monitoring of concrete pavements. He participated in research projects at TxDOT, where he developed a maintenance and rehabilitation decision tree for roadways in energy development regions in Texas and contributed to developing a methodology for calibration of Pavement ME in Oklahoma. Additionally, he developed methodologies using Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) for materials characterization of Roller Compacted Concrete (RCC). His academic and research portfolio includes Design of Experiment-based statistical analysis, lifecycle cost modeling, and the use of programming tools such as R, SQL to drive data-informed engineering decisions for pavements.
He has acquired extensive structural engineering experience, including the design and supervision of concrete bridges (both prestressed and non-prestressed), underpasses, and commercial and residential buildings, utilizing ACI, IBC, AASHTO, and European codes.
Education and Certifications
- Civil Engineering, B.S.: Jordan University of Science and Technology (2007)
- Civil Engineering, M.S.: University of Houston (2010)
- Civil Engineering, Ph.D.: Texas A&M University (2021)
- Licensed Professional Engineer: Texas
- Memberships: ASCE
Publications
- Zhang, J., Im, S., Mahmoud, I., Zollinger, D., and Zhou, F. (2018). “Pavement Designs for the Energy Development Areas with Heavy Loads—Part I: Flexible Pavements and Part II: Rigid Pavements (No. FHWA/TX-18/0-6839-R1, 0-6839-R1).” Texas A&M Transportation Institute.
- Sakhaeifar, M., Tabesh, M., Newcomb, D., Lytton, R., Zollinger, D., and Issa, I. M. (2019). “Compilation of local studies and regional calibration of pavement ME design for rigid and Flexible pavements in Oklahoma (No. FHWA-OK-2277).” Department of Transportation.
- Issa, I. M., and Zollinger, D. G. (2021). “Modelling compactibility of RCC specimens using the asphalt gyratory compactor.” Construction and Building Materials, Volume 310, p. 125271.
- Issa, I. M., and Zollinger, D. G. (2022). “Developing a distress-based traffic equivalency to efficiently evaluate the effect of traffic loads on pavement performance.” International Journal of Pavement Engineering, Volume 23, Issue 13, 4465-4473.
- Issa, I. M., Zollinger, D. G., Onifade, I., and Lytton, R. L. (2022). “Laboratory approach to determine roller compacted concrete mixture electrical characteristics using a new time-domain reflectometry interpretation method.” Transportation Research Record, Volume 2676, Issue 1, Pages 376-387.
- Issa, I. M., and Zollinger, D. G. (2023). “A framework to evaluate short-and long-term performance of roller compacted concrete pavements.” International Journal of Pavement Engineering, Volume 24, Issue 2, p. 2103131.
- Issa, I. M., and Greene, J. (2023). “Approach to Estimate Time to Friction Loss in Pavement Mechanistic-Empirical for the Florida Concrete Test Road.” Transportation Research Record, Volume 2677, Issue 10, Pages 478-490.