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FACULTY PROFILES

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Dana Nasr
           

Assistant Professor and Department Chair
Faculty of Engineering
Civil & Environmental Engineering
After graduating from Balamand High School and after being a Civil Engineering undergraduate and graduate student at the University of Balamand, Dr. Nasr joined the University of Balamand as a lecturer after pursuing her postgraduate studies in Civil Engineering at the American University of Beirut.

Dr. Nasr obtained her Bachelor’s in sciences degree in Civil Engineering in July 2009 and her MSc degree in Civil Engineering (Minor Concentration: Structural Engineering) in September 2010 at the University of Balamand. Dr. Nasr was granted two student excellence awards from the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Balamand for scoring the highest GPA in Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering in July 2009 and in Master of Science degree in July 2011 respectively. Dr. Nasr continued her postgraduate studies and obtained a PhD in Civil Engineering in the field of stochastic optimization of structural health monitoring techniques at the American University of Beirut in November 2016. Dr. Nasr was nominated to be the recipient of the Zakhem Doctoral Fellowship at the American University of Beirut.

Dr. Nasr joined the Faculty of Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, at the University of Balamand, as a part-time Instructor and was, subsequently, promoted to a full-time Lecturer in January and September 2017 respectively. In 2020, Dr. Nasr was promoted to Assistant Professor. 

Dr. Nasr has been teaching various undergraduate and graduate, both English-Speaking and French-Speaking, courses in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Balamand, mainly in the field of Structural and Earthquake Engineering as well as other fields such as Transportation Engineering.
In addition to her teaching duties, Dr. Nasr supervised and moderated several Civil Engineering undergraduate and graduate projects and MS theses in different fields, especially in the field of Structural and Earthquake Engineering.

In 2018, Dr. Nasr was appointed as a member of the Projects and Research Committee at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Balamand that coordinates the progress of undergraduate projects and master’s projects and theses. At the same time, she was also a member of the Graduate Monitoring Committee at the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Balamand that supervises graduate students progress and updates graduate program and course offerings.

Dr. Nasr was appointed as the Faculty Advisor of the ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) UOB Student Chapter in 2019. In collaboration with Dr. Nasr and other faculty members, this UOB student chapter organizes field trips for civil engineering students to construction sites and civil engineering factories and companies, professional talks and seminars related to the various fields of Civil Engineering and participates in many social events and gatherings at the University of Balamand. The UOB-ASCE Student Chapter officers and the Faculty Advisor (Dana Nasr) were selected for the award: “ASCE 2021 Letter of Recognition for Community Service”, by the ASCE Committee on Student Members, on March 26, 2021.

In 2020, Dr. Nasr was appointed as the representative of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department in the Faculty of Engineering Training Committee and in the Engineering Projects and Theses Committee (EPTC).

From 2021 till 2023, Dr. Nasr served as the Program Assessment Coordinator (PAC) of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department in the ABET Committee.

In 2023, Dr Nasr was appointed the Chairperson of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, at the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Balamand.


The research interest and activities may include:

  1. Determining the optimal locations and configurations of available sensors and monitoring devices to extract the most informative real measured data, required to detect the damage in its early stages for Structural Health Monitoring purposes. The application of these proposed optimal sensor placement frameworks on structures subjected to seismic excitation.
  2. Modeling of complex nonlinear structures by employing Structural Health Monitoring techniques to early detect the damage and identify the unknown model parameters and system states.
  3. Analysis of collected real time measured data and observations using Sequential Data Assimilation Techniques, more specifically the Kalman filter method and its different variations (i.e. the Ensemble Kalman Filter and the Polynomial Chaos Kalman Filter), employed as history matching techniques.
  4. Quantification of uncertainties for systems subjected to extreme events, mainly earthquake excitation.
  5. The development and application of novel statistical and computational methods to address problems in Structural, Material and Earthquake Engineering research.
 
Research Interests
 
  1. Earthquake Engineering
  2. Engineering Mechanics
  3. Concrete and Steel Structures
  4. Uncertainty and Risk
  5. Probability and Stochastic Systems
  6. Systems Modeling and Optimization
  7. Numerical Techniques and Simulation 
Selected Works
 
Abdulkader El-Mir, Samer El-Zahab, Dana Nasr, Nabil Semaan, Joseph Assaad, Hilal El-Hassan, (2024), “Use of Machine Learning Models to Predict the Water Penetration Depth in Concrete”. Journal of Building Engineering,  Volume 95:110107.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2024.110107
 
Dana E. Nasr, Reina El Dahr, Joseph Assaad, and Jamal Khatib (2022), “Comparative Analysis between Genetic Algorithm and Simulated Annealing-Based Frameworks for Optimal Sensor Placement and Structural Health Monitoring Purposes”. Buildings, Volume 12, Number 9, September 2022, 1383.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings12091383
 
Assaad, Joseph, Dana Nasr, Najib Gerges, and Camille Issa, (2021), "Use of Soft Computing Techniques to Predict the Bond to Reinforcing Bars of Underwater Concrete." International Journal of Civil Engineering, Volume 19, Number 6, June 2021, pages 669-683.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40999-020-00598-1 

Assaad, Joseph, Dana Nasr, Stephanie Chwaifaty, and Tarek Tawk, (2020), “Parametric study on polymer-modified pigmented cementitious overlays for colored applications”, Journal of Building Engineering – Elsevier, Volume 27, January 2020, 101009.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2019.101009 
 
Dana E. Nasr, Wael G. Slika, and George A. Saad, (2018), “Uncertainty Quantification for Structural Health Monitoring Applications”, Smart Structures and Systems, Volume 22, Number 4, October 2018, pages 399-411,
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12989/sss.2018.22.4.399 
 
Dana E. Nasr, and George A. Saad, (2016), “Optimal Sensor Placement Using a Combined Genetic Algorithm-Ensemble Kalman Filter Framework”, ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, Part A: Civil Engineering, Volume 3, Issue 1, 04016010, 
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1061/AJRUA6.0000886

 


Teaching
 
  1. CIVE 201: Statics
  2. CIVE 308: Transportation Engineering
  3. CIVE 309: Engineering Economy
  4. CIVE 401: Theory of Structures II
  5. CIVE 402: Dynamics of Structures I
  6. CIVE 411: Introduction to Earthquake Engineering and Seismology
  7. CIVE303: Computer-Aided Design
  8. CIVE443: Seismic Design of Reinforced Concrete Buildings
  9. CIVE424: Advanced Mechanics of Materials for Civil Engineering
 
Supervision
 
  1. MS Thesis by Reina El-Dahr: Comparative Analysis between Different Optimization-Based Methods for Structural Health Monitoring Purposes (Spring 18-19 – Fall 19-20).
  2. MS project by Elie Harb and Joe Azizeh: Seismic Analysis and Design of a High-Rise Building (Fall 17-18 – Spring 17-18).
  3. MS Thesis by Georges El Nemer: Seismic Analysis and Optimal Sensor Placement for a high-rise building (Spring 20-21 – Fall 21-22).


  1. Zakhem Doctoral Fellowship
    First recipient of the Zakhem Doctoral Fellowship at the American University of Beirut, October 2012-November 2016   
  2. Student Excellence Award
    Granted to the student with the highest GPA in Master of Science degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Balamand, July 2011
  3. Student Excellence Award
    Granted to the student with the highest GPA in Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Balamand, July 2009