A. Emin Aktan, Ph.D., is John Roebling Professor of Infrastructure Studies at Drexel University’s Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering. He also is the director of the Drexel Intelligent Infrastructure and Transportation Safety Institute.

Aktan has been involved in a number of CAIT-led initiatives and research projects including the FHWA Long-Term Bridge Performance (LTBP) program and the International Bridge Study.

His main research interest is structural identification (St-Id) and health monitoring for management of civil infrastructure systems (i.e., buildings, bridges, and other structures). He has participated in the St-Id of dozens of operating and decommissioned constructed systems including major long-span suspension bridges. A broad goal of his research is to generate fundamental knowledge regarding the actual behavior and loading environments of constructed facilities.

Aktan served as the founding chair of the ASCE Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) technical committees on performance-based structural engineering and St-Id of constructed systems.

His research has been funded by NSF, FHWA, EPA, and by various state government agencies. He has supported and graduated more than a dozen doctoral students, published several dozen journal articles, and consulted for prestigious corporations and university programs.

Aktan received his Ph.D. in earthquake structural engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and served as a post-doctoral associate at he University of California at Berkeley for five years. He held faculty positions at the Middle East Technical University, Louisiana State University, and University of Cincinnati before joining Drexel.