UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Professor Farshad Rajabipour has been named interim head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the Penn State College of Engineering, effective July 1. Rajabipour assumes leadership of the department following the appointment of Patrick Fox as dean of engineering at Ohio University.

“We are at a unique moment in time for our department, one filled with fascinating opportunities and research initiatives led by our outstanding faculty, staff and students,” Rajabipour said. “These include climate solutions, decarbonization, sustainable development, water-food-energy nexus, infrastructure resiliency, equitable transportation, space construction, and artificial intelligence, to name a few.

“This leadership transition and the department’s upcoming move to west campus from our longtime home in Sackett Building provide a fresh opportunity for partnerships to enrich our staff and faculty culture, to identify new avenues for bolstering student enrollment, and to energize the implementation of our strategic plan for the future.”

Rajabipour, a Penn State faculty member since 2009, also is the new director of the Center for Integrated Asset Management for Multimodal Transportation Infrastructure Systems, a U.S. Department of Transportation Region 3 University Transportation Center at Penn State’s Larson Transportation Institute. Previously, he held civil engineering appointments at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and Purdue University. Rajabipour also served as a visiting faculty member at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.

Rajabipour’s research interests include decarbonizing cement and concrete, marginal and nonconventional pozzolans, extending the durability and service life of infrastructure, sensor development, and ultra-high-performance concrete. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Sharif University of Technology and master’s and doctoral degrees from Purdue University.