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Ashraf El Damatty wins OPEA 2018 Engineering Medal for Research and Development
Western Engineering News | November 23, 2018
On November 17, 2018, The Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE) and Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO) held the annual Ontario Professional Engineers Awards (OPEA) Gala, bringing industry innovators, business leaders and policy makers together to celebrate and be inspired by engineering excellence and achievement.
Eleven awards were presented at the OPEA Gala in categories ranging from Engineering Excellence, Entrepreneurship, Management, Research and Development, a Citizenship award and a Young Engineer award.
Ashraf El Damatty, Professor and Chair in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, received the 2018 Engineering Medal for Research and Development.
“I am really honored to receive the 2018 PEO Medal for Research and Development,” said El Damatty. “I felt very warm receiving this award in the OPEA Gala surrounded by family members, colleagues from Western and my industrial research sponsors. This award is a reflection of the hard work of my research team and collaborators over the years, including more than 50 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, and my staff and faculty colleagues at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.”
El Damatty has served as the department chair since 2013, and is currently the Research Director of the Wind Engineering, Energy and Environment (WindEEE) Research Institute, where he has conducted groundbreaking research on the stability and seismic behaviour of elevated conical water tanks. His work has led to the development of innovative design methodologies for managing hydrostatic and earthquake loads that have been used in Canada, the US, Mexico and Japan.
Under El Damatty’s leadership, Western Engineering’s Civil and Environmental Engineering department was ranked #1 in Canada and #12 in the 2017 Academic Ranking of Global Universities for Civil Engineering. During the past five years, El Damatty has published 45 peerreviewed papers in the top scientific journals, has supervised 20 Ph.D. and 8 M.Sc. students, obtained an MBA in Higher Education Management from University College London, UK, served as Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Wind and Structures, and received many national and international awards and recognitions.
