Oral Buyukozturk

Background and Education

Dr. Oral Buyukozturk is George Macomber Professor, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Director of the Laboratory for Infrastructure Science and Sustainability at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received his Ph.D. degree in Structural Engineering from Cornell University in 1970. He joined the MIT faculty in 1976 following six years of experience, including two years at United Engineers and Constructors in safety analysis and design of nuclear containment structures, and four years as Senior Research Scientist with Marc Analysis and Research Corporation (Brown University affiliate) and as Adjunct Associate Professor at Brown University in computational engineering analysis and development. Professor Buyukozturk’s research interest is in infrastructure mechanics, materials, and sustainability integrating areas of multiscale concrete and interface mechanics for durable and sustainable structures, and innovative sensing and data analytics towards the development of intelligent structures and resilient cities. His work in these areas have led to groundbreaking developments and innovations in multiscale modeling and design of cementitious materials with additives, use of locally available waste materials (e.g., irradiated post-consumed plastic, volcanic ash) for durable and sustainable concrete materials and construction, and in novel computer vision techniques for structural sensing with motion magnification, system identification and structural health monitoring.

Awards and Honors

• Elected Fellow of Scotland’s National Academy of Science and Letters | 2009
• George W. Housner Structural Control and Monitoring Medal, EMI (ASCE) | 2018
• Golden Mirko Ros Medal, EMPA Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology | 2011
• Distinguished Service and Leadership Award, MIT CEE | 2018
• 2023 Mustafa Inan Special Award from his alma mater Istanbul Technical University (ITU) for excellence in science and engineering.
• Recognized in 2021 as the top 0.1% cited scientist world-wide in Mendeley metadata of citations coordinated by Stanford University.
• Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
• Fellow of Engineering Mechanics Institute (EMI)
• Fellow of American Concrete Institute (ACI)