Nominee
Hessam Azarijafari
Category
Innovative Person or Team
Description
Dr. Hessam AzariJafari is a Research Scientist and Deputy Director of the Concrete Sustainability Hub at MIT. His background is in concrete technology. As a principal investigator and researcher, he has been leading different projects on the life cycle sustainability of concrete infrastructure systems. He has worked on the performance of concrete with high-volume pozzolans and contributed to multiple global-scale projects on the natural carbon sequestration of cementitious materials. Hessam is a voting and advisory member of several technical committees on sustainable construction and environmental assessment, such as ISO 14082 Radiative Forcing Management, ACI 130- Concrete Sustainability and its active subcommittees, and EC3: Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator. Since 2017, Hessam has been serving as the chair of the ACI eco-concrete competition to promote and educate life cycle sustainability undergraduate students in civil engineering. He is a co-editor of a new special issue in ACI Materials Journal on the “sustainability and resilience of cement and concrete products”.
Evidence
Modeling and tools development
• Created the ACI eco concrete competition tool and rules.
• Developed a data science approach and dynamic material flow analysis for modeling life cycle economic and environmental impacts of roads and buildings in the U.S.
• Developed and open-access tool for estimating the carbon uptake of concrete during its use and end of life.
• Created a hyper-local model to assess the urban heat island effect of pavements on building energy demand.
• Developed a streamlined life cycle assessment (LCA) method for assessing environmental impacts of concrete.
• Outlined decarbonization strategies in construction industries and their implications for carbon-neutral concrete industry.
Educational and supervision
• Developed two new courses on the sustainability of concrete (School for environment and sustainability, University of Michigan).
• As a guest lecturer, presented on the topic of concrete sustainability and resilience to more 10 universities around the world.
• Delivered more than 50 online and in-person presentations on concrete sustainability.
• Supervised and mentored 10 graduate students and postdocs on the topic of life cycle assessment and performance-based specifications.
• Managed concrete labs at universities and tunneling project.
• Published research outcomes more than 25 peer-reviewed research papers, book chapters, and proceeding papers in different concrete-related venues (Construction and building, ACI Materials, ACI Special Publication, Concrete International, etc.)
• Provided guides to the concrete companies and local DOTs to develop EPDs and implement LCA.
Honors, awards, fellowships
• Leonardo da Vinci Medal of Merit, Université de Sherbrooke, Canada (2017)
Recognizing merit of the recipients for all the activities at school, extracurricular and professional levels.
• Bourse des ingénieures-professeures et des ingénieurs-professeurs de la Faculté de génie, Université de Sherbrooke, Canada (2017)
Awarded scholarship to graduate student with outstanding performance.
• Merit doctoral research fellowship program for foreign students (PBEEE); Fonds de recherche du Québec Nature et technologies (FRQNT), Gouvernement du Québec, Canada (2016-2018)
To support the internationalization of research activities in Québec's institutions of higher education, to attract the best foreign researchers and students.
• The “Pierre Claude Aїtcin” Award; Centre de recherche sur les infrastructures en béton (CRIB), Canada (2016)
Awar
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