Hota GangaRao

Hota GangaRao is the Maurice A. and Jo Ann Wadsworth Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at West Virginia University.

An accomplished researcher, GangaRao serves as the director of the Constructed Facilities Center at WVU. Established in 1988, the Center serves a number of federal and state agencies, conducting interdisciplinary research in the areas of composite materials, diagnostic tools, design procedures and structural components. GangaRao also directs the Center for the Integration of Composites into Infrastructure, a National Science Foundation industry/university cooperative research center, founded in 2009. The mission of CICI is to accelerate the adoption of polymer composites and innovated construction material into infrastructure and transportation applications through collaborative research.

GangaRao was the first person to design and implement fiber-reinforced plastic decks, rebar and fabric wraps in several state bridges, including the East Lynn Lake Bridge in Huntington, which won the 2015 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Innovation of the Year Award. His work on composite wicket gates at the Peoria Lock & Dam on the Illinois River at Creve Coeur, Illinois, won the 2016 USACE Innovation of the Year Award. GangaRao has also been recognized at the national level for his contributions in evaluating fire damage at the historic Harpers Ferry district.

In 2016, GangaRao received the 2016 West Virginia American Society of Civil Engineers Civil Engineer of the Year Award. The award is given to a distinguished civil engineer for sustained outstanding civil engineering performance. In 2014, he was named a Fellow of the ASCEs Structural Engineering Institute.

Additional biographical and background information available at: http://www.statler.wvu.edu/faculty-staff/administration/hota-gangarao.