Samer Dessouky, Ph.D.

Samer Dessouky, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Dept of Civil and Environmental Engineering

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BSE 1.322
458-7072
(210) 458- 6475

Related Projects

Educational Background: 

PhD: Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX
MSc: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Washington State University, Pullman, WA.
BSc: Civil Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.

Professional History: 

Dr. Dessouky is an associate professor of Civil Engineering.  He has more than 20 years of experience in infrastructure sustainability, pavement management and safety.  Prior to his arrival to UTSA, he participated in several state and national projects during the employment at Texas A&M University, University of Illinois and Washington State University. His current research projects are sponsored by federal, state and private sector. His funding at UTSA exceeds $6.0 million from FHWA, TxDOT, City of San Antonio, Howlett Packard, CPS and SWRI.  He is a current panelist and reviewer for the NCHRP program, Air Force Faculty Fellowship Program, Fulbright and NASA graduate fellowship program.  Dr. Dessouky has 90 refereed technical publications on bituminous materials, computational micromechanics of asphalt mixtures, pavement sustainability, geogrid reinforcement, energy harvesting from roadways and motorists safety.  He is the recipient of the Grant Mickle best paper award by the TRB in 2006, and his recent Energy harvesting innovation won the best innovative green engineering technology by ASCE in 2016 and the best paper award by ASEE in 2015 with his students. 

Dr. Dessouky is recognized by his work in energy harvesting from roadways and through invited talks at Turkey, South Korea, China, Qatar, France and Egypt. He has chaired and co-chaired 3 visiting scholars, 3 PhD, 26 MSc. and 23 Undergraduates.  Dr. Dessouky served as the Principal investigator of a multi-million innovative research project managing more than 30 researchers, students and faculty members from three institutions. He served as a keynote speaker, chair and co-chair for numerous national and international conferences to present the current state of practice in pavement sustainability. 

In 2017, with his student Mr. Utpal Datta, he won the Overall Best New Concept, Most Innovative in the Green Engineering topic category, and Best Value in the Next Generation Transportation topic category from the ASCE. Also with Mr. Datta, he won the 2nd place award in the Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) University Design Competition.

Professional Affiliations:

American Society of Civil Engineers Fellow.
Board Member of the Construction-institute Bituminous Materials Committee: ASCE
International Board Member, Middle East Society of Asphalt Technologists

 

What first inspired you to work in your field? Roadways are a major component in the transportation sector that we use almost every day for mobility.  To keep these roadways in acceptable conditions and to maintain traffic safety has been always a challenge for transportation engineers. Integrating technology solutions to improve roadways structural integrity, enhance their economic impact and improve traffic safety has been the core of my research work the last 20 years. More importantly, the need for these solutions is made more acute with the future growth of autonomous (i.e., self-driving) vehicles and the spread of vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2F) communications that will improve roadway safety and reduce accidents. 

 

Current Work at the Institute:

Mechanical and Thermal Energy harvesting from roadways, Traffic detection and Safety

Current TSERI-funded research for 2017 fiscal year:

A Hybrid Integrated Sensing and Energy Conversion (HISEC) System For Harvesting Mechanical and Thermal Energy from Roadways

Publications:

A.T. Papagiannakis, Montoya, A., Dessouky S. and J. Helffrich (2017) “Development and Evaluation of Piezoelectric Prototypes for Roadway Energy Harvesting” ASCE Journal of Energy, Vol. 143 (5).
Datta U., Dessouky S. and A.T. Papagiannakis. (2017) “Harvesting of Thermoelectric Energy from Asphalt Pavements” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, Vol. 2628, pp. 12-22.
Roshani, H., Dessouky S., Montoya, A. and A.T. Papagiannakis (2016) “Energy Harvesting from Roadways Vehicle-Induced Stresses: A Feasibility Study” Journal of Applied Energy, Vol. 182, pp. 210-218.
Dessouky S., A.T. Papagiannakis and Abbas A. (2016) “A Simple Prioritization Approach for Rehabilitation and Preventive Maintenance of Pavement Projects” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, Vol. 2550, pp. 63-71.
Dessouky S., Ilias M., Park D., Kim I.T. (2015). “Influence of Antioxidant-Enhanced Polymers in Bitumen Rheology and Bituminous Concrete Mixtures Mechanical Performance” Journal of Advances in Materials Science and Engineering, Vol. 2015, pp. 1-9.
Dessouky S., Sharif H. and Weissmann J. (2015) “Quantifying Safety and Economic Impact of Texas Travel Information Centers”. Journal of Transportation of the Institute of Transportation Engineers, Vol 7(1), pp. 17-33.
Park D., Dessouky S. and Lee J. (2015) “Simulation Of Snow Melting Pavement Performance Using Measured Thermal Properties Of Graphite Modified Asphalt Mixture” Journal of Road Materials and Pavement Design, Vol. 16(3), pp. 696-706.
Dessouky S., Ho J., Bourland M., Ilias M.**, Lee S.I. and Park D. (2015) “Performance of Various Pavement Repairs in Low-Volume Roadways over Expansive Soil”. ASCE Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities, Vol 29(6).