Dr. Maurizio Morgese, Ph.D., serves as an Engineering Research Project Manager at CAIT. His primary research focus centers on sensor-based structural health monitoring for both new and existing structures. His expertise lies in implementing mechanistic and computational approaches to assess infrastructure vulnerabilities, quantify capacity loss, and evaluate adaptability to evolving load conditions driven by population growth and global economic expansion.

Notably, Dr. Morgese’s experience includes a post-collapse analysis of the Morandi Polcevera viaduct in Genoa, Italy. His pioneering work introduced an analytical method that integrates corrosion, fatigue, and traffic models to assess the remaining service life of structures. Furthermore, his research extends to the development of analytical and computational techniques for damage assessment in concrete and steel structural components, leveraging distributed fiber optic sensors and digital image correlation.

Dr. Morgese has made significant contributions to the field, such as his involvement in the Kishwaukee River Bridges monitoring project, which employed a distributed Brillouin scattering fiber optic sensor system on Highway I-39 in Rockford, Illinois, USA. Here, supervised and unsupervised statistical learning algorithms were utilized to assess structural damage conditions. He has also delved into investigating the dynamic behavior of bridge damages and extracting bridge modal information using distributed fiber optic sensors, FBG crack sensors, and traditional accelerometers.

In addition to his research endeavors, Dr. Morgese has valuable industry experience. He played a pivotal role in the design of the Belgrano C train station in Buenos Aires (Argentina) while working at the consulting firm Ingroup (Cordoba, Argentina). For this project, he conducted the assessment of resonance risk related to crowd loading, further enhancing his understanding of structural dynamics and safety considerations.

Dr. Morgese actively contributes to the academic community as well. He serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Building Pathology and Rehabilitation (Springer) and acts as a peer reviewer for esteemed international journals such as Structural and Materials Journals (American Concrete Institute), Journal of Bridge Engineering (ASCE), Journal of Engineering Mechanics (ASCE), Journal of Civil Structural Health Monitoring (Springer), and Journal of Vibration and Control (SAGE). His achievements include the recognition of his paper titled “Stress-Strain Response of Optical Fibers in Direct Tension” (Journal of Engineering Mechanics, ASCE), which was selected as the technical paper of the week by ASCE Publishing.

Dr. Morgese earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Turin Polytechnic (Italy) and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Chicago, showcasing his commitment to advancing the field of structural health monitoring.