Ali Maher, PhD, F.ASCE
Partner and Senior Technical Consultant

        

Ali Maher has been director of the Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation (CAIT) at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, since the center’s inception in 1998. Since that time, he has been responsible for building the center into an active and successful transportation infrastructure resource program operating at the national level. Under his leadership, CAIT has grown into a program of excellence for multimodal infrastructure asset management that is engaged in research, education, and technology transfer initiatives. He has also led the center through two successful national competitions in retaining its status as a U.S. Department of Transportation-designated University Transportation Center (UTC).

Ali holds a Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctoral degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His expertise as an infrastructure, geotechnical, and geo-environmental consultant has been tapped by Parsons Brinckerhoff; Stantec Inc.; DMJM Harris; PPG Corporation; the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; state transportation agencies in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; and many others. The bulk of research he has conducted personally has been in the areas of ground improvement, soil dynamics, infrastructure management, nondestructive testing, environmental geotechnology, and new technology vehicles.

Ali has been the recipient of many prestigious professional awards including the AASHTO Trailblazer Award, American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Educator of the Year Award, and certificates of appreciation from NJDOT for seven consecutive years. He is active in transportation and engineering professional associations such as the Transportation Research Board (TRB), ASCE, ASTM and the U.S. Universities Council on Geotechnical Engineering Research.

Ali Maher Publications

  1. Maher, A., et al. (contributing author), 2010, “Research Agenda for Transportation Infrastructure Preservation and Renewal”, TRB Committee Publication, Transportation Asset Management Committee.
  2. Bennert, T., and Maher, A., 2009, “Field and Laboratory Evaluation of a Reflective Crack Relief Interlayer (RCRI) Mixture in New Jersey”, Transportation Research Record No. 2084, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 114 – 123 pp. (Winner of TRB’s 2009 K.B. Wood Award for best paper in design and construction).
  3. Bennert, T., and Maher, A., 2009, “A Practical Methodology for the Performance-Based Selection of Bituminous Mixtures for Concrete Overlays”, Pavement Cracking: Mechanisms, Modeling, Detection, Testing and Case Histories, Proceedings of the 6th RILEM International Conference on Cracking in Pavements, Chicago, IL, pp. 833 – 842.
  4. Maher, A., Douglas, S., Jafari, F., and Gucunski, N., 2006, “Field Placement and Evaluation of Stabilized Dredged Material (SDM) from New York/ New Jersey Harbor,” Journal of Marine Georesources and Technology. Vol. 24, December 2006, pp. 251-263.
  5. Maher, A., Douglas, W. S., Yang, D., Jafari, F. and Schaefer, V. “Cement Deep Soil Mixing for Solidification of Marine 3 Sediments,” Journal of Marine Georesources and Technology,” Vol. 25, July 2007, 221-235 pp.
  6. Bennert, T., Maher, A., and Jafari, F., 2006, “Piezocone Evaluation of a Shallow Soil-Bentonite Slurry Wall”, Waste Containment and Remediation: Engineering Properties of Vertical Barriers, Geotechnical Special Publication No. 142, ASCE.
  7. Maher, A., Douglas, S., and Jafari, F., 2006, “Field Placement and Evaluation of Stabilized Dredged Material (SDM) from New York/ New Jersey Harbor, accepted for publication to the Journal of Marine Georesources and Technology.
  8. Douglas, W. S., Maher, A., Farhad Jafari, 2005, “Analysis of Environmental Effects of the Use of Stabilized Dredged Material from New York/New Jersey Harbor, USA, for Construction of Roadway Embankments”, Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management, Volume 1, Number 4, pp. 1–10.
  9. Maher, A., Bennert, T., Jafari, F., Douglas, S., and Gucunski, N., 2004, “Geotechnical Properties of Stabilized Dredged Material from New York-New Jersey Harbor”, Transportation Research Record No. 1874, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 2004, pp. 86- 99.
  10. Maher, A., Bennert, T., Jafari, F., Douglas, S., and Gucunski, N., 2004, “Geotechnical Properties of Stabilized Dredged Material from New York-New 2 PhD Candidate 4 Jersey Harbor”, Transportation Research Record No. 1874, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 2004, pp. 86-99
  11. Bennert, T. A., Maher, M. H. (Ali), Jafari, F., and Gucunski, N., 1999, “Use of Dredged Sediments from the Newark Harbor for Geotechnical Applications,” Geotechnics of High Water Content Materials, ASTM STP 1374, 2000, pp. 152- 164.
  12. Papp Jr., W. J., Maher, M. H. (Ali), and Baker, R. F. “Use of Shredded Tires in the Subbase Layer of Asphalt Pavements”, Testing Soil Mixed with Waste of Recycled Materials, ASTM STP 1275, American Society for Testing and Materials, 1997, pp. 286-298.
  13. Maher, M. H. (Ali), Gucunski, N., and Papp* Jr., W. J., “Recycled Asphalt Pavement as a Base and Sub-base Material”, Testing Soil Mixed with Waste of Recycled Materials, ASTM STP 1275, American Society for Testing and Materials, 1997, pp. 42-53.
  14. Maher, M. H. (Ali) and Balaguru, P., “Properties of High Volume Fly Ash Cement Composite: Floawable Mixture,” ASCE Journal of Materials in Engineering, Vol. 7, No. 2, May 1993, pp. 212-225.
  15. Maher, M. H. (Ali) and Welsh, J. P., “Effect of Soil Treatment on the Dynamic Response of Foundations,” ASCE Specialty Publication # 30, February 1992, pp. 855-866.
  16. Maher, M. H. (Ali), Flood*, D. and Balaguru, P., “Properties of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Ash – Cement 6 Composite,” Transportation Research Record # 1295, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, 1991, pp. 9-16. 50.

Books

  1. Maher, M. H. (Ali) and Yang, S., “Soil Improvement for Big Digs”, Specialty Publication # 81, published by the American Society of Civil Engineers, October 1998, 342 pages.

Related Proceedings

  1. Maher, M. H. (Ali) and Yang, S., “Soil Improvement for Big Digs”, Specialty Publication # 81, published by the American Society of Civil Engineers, October 1998, 342 pages.
  2. Maher, A., Douglas, W. S., Jafari, F., and Yang, D., “In-Situ Deep Soil Mixing for Solidification of Soft Estuarine Sediments, Proceedings of GeoCongress 2008, ASCE, New Orleans.
  3. Maher, A., Douglas, W. S., Jafari, F., and Yang, D., “In-Situ Solidification of River Sediments using Cement deep Soil Mixing (CDSM), Proceedings of GeoCongress 2006, ASCE, Atlanta, Georgia.
  4. Gaffney, D. A., Martin, S. M., Maher, M. H., and Bennert, T. A., “Dewatering Contaminated Fine-Grained Material Using Geotextiles,” Proceedings of Geosynthetics ’99 Conference, 1999, pp. 87-98. (Refereed).
  5. Maher, M. H. (Ali), Gucunski, N. and Sarmad, A., “Evaluation of Composite Piles for Marine Applications,” Proc. of the 2nd Intl. Conf. On Civil Engineering, Tehran, June 1997.
  6. Gucunski, N., Ganji, V. and Maher, M. H., “Analysis of Settlements of Landfill Caps by FEM,” Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on Environmental Geotechnology, San Diego, California, June 10-12, 1996, pp. 485-494.
  7. Maher, M. H., Gucunski, N. and Chae, Y. S., “Composite Fender and Sheet Piles In Marine Front Systems,” Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Composites in Infrastructure Fiber Composites in Infrastructure, Tucson, Arizona, January 15-17, 1996, pp. 665-675.
  8. Maher, M. H., Bennert, T. A., Jafari, F., and Aagard, P., 1997, “Geotechnical Evaluation of Dredged Material from Newark Harbor.”, Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Solid Waste Technology and Management, Philadelphia, PA, 1997, pp. 67-79. (Refereed)
  9. Maher, M. H. (Ali), Butziger, J. M., DiSalvo, D. L., and Oweis, I. S., “Lime Sludge Amended Fly Ash for Utilization as an Engineering Material,” Proc. ASCE National Meeting, Dallas, October 1993.
  10. Maher, M. H. (Ali), Butziger, J. M., and Chae, Y. S., “Utilization of Municipal Soild Waste as a Construction Material,” NSF sponsored European Conf. on Environmental Geotechnology, Izmir, Turkey, 1992, pp. 457-465.
  11. Maher, M. H. (Ali), Lacy, S. J. and Filho, F. V., “Dynamic Response of Foundations on Treated Soils,” Proc. 2nd Intl. Conf. on Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, Rolla, Missouri, 1991. 58.
  12. Maher, M. H. (Ali) and Balaguru, P., “Mechanical Properties of Low Strength, High Volume Fly Ash Mortar,” ACAA’s 9th Intl. Coal Ash Utilization Symposium, Orlando, Florida, January 1991.

Related Technical Reports

  1. Bennert, T. and A. Maher, 2009, The Use of Recycled Concrete Aggregate in a Dense Graded Aggregate Base Course, FHWA-NJ-2008-002, New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT), 77 pp.
  2. Development of a Dredge Operation Planning and Decision Support Tools. Port of Piraeus, 2005.
  3. Solidification of Soft River Sediments Using Deep Soil Mixing, NJDOT, 2006 5. Analysis of Decision Support System for Dredging Operation Management, USACE, 2005.
  4. Demonstration Project-Beneficial Reuse of Dredged Clay in Upland Site, NJ Maritime Resources, NJDOT, 2005.
  5. Geotechnical Testing and Beneficial Reuse Evaluation Program of River Sediments, NJ Maritime Resources, NJDOT, 2004.
  6. Development of a Performance Based Specification for Granular Base and Sub-base Materials, FHWA/NJDOT, 2004.
  7. Geotechnical Benefits of Mixing Construction and Demolition Screenings with Cement-Amended Dredged Materials, NJDOT, 2003.
  8. A. Maher, T. Bennert, N. Gucunski, “Resilient Modulus Properties of New Jersey Subgrade Soils,” Submitted to NJDOT, September 2000.
  9. F. Ansari, A. Maher, A. Luke, G. Y. Yong Zhang, P. Szary, “Recycled Materials in Portland Cement Concrete,” Submitted to NJDOT, June 2000.
  10. Ansari, F., Zhang, G., Maher, M. H. (Ali), Khouri, W. and Gucunski, N., “Recycled Materials in Portland Cement Concrete,” Phase I Report, NJDOT, September 1996.