Dr. Imam holds M.S. and PhD degrees from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California with a GPA close to 4.00/4.00, Professional Engineers License from Ontario, Canada, more than 65 publications (mostly in international journals), and more than 750 citations. Dr. Imam’s focus has recently been on Engineering Education and Accreditation. In the past 45 years of teaching and research in the United States and Saudi Arabia, his research has involved ABET Accreditation, Multi-Disciplinary Optimization, Facility Layout Optimization, & Computer Applications, encompassing a variety of different fields in engineering.
Dr. Imam has valuable experience in research and large-scale Engineering Application Software Development and Optimization. He gained this experience mainly from the following two positions in the United States:
1. Post-Doctoral Research Associate and Coordinator of SAP Users’ group at USC
2. Staff Research Engineer, General Motors Research Laboratories, Michigan
During his employment at Umm Al-Qura University, Saudi Arabia, from 1984 to 2019, he played a key role in the development of the Civil Engineering Department and College of Engineering as a member of multiple committees on curriculum design, laboratories development, computer laboratory proposal and implementation. As the ABET Coordinator, member of ABET Accreditation Steering Committee, and Chair of the ABET Assessment Committee, he developed processes and introduced new techniques for the continuous improvement of educational quality while making the assessment and evaluation processes for ABET accreditation easier. He automated these into a software package called CLOSO.
He led the ABET accreditation activities for the Civil Engineering program at Umm Al-Qura University for 10 years, before retiring in 2019. Under his leadership, the Civil Engineering program got ABET accreditation twice in a row, with no concerns or weaknesses. His system of Continuous Quality Improvement for the program was praised by all those who reviewed it.
Dr. Imam now works to further develop his ABET accreditation tool, CLOSO.
Smart-Accredit.com 2019 to date
Consultant, ABET Accreditation
Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia 1984 to 2019
Professor, Civil Engineering Department
For the past few years, Dr. Imam’s emphasis has been on improving the course material and teaching techniques for the department for ABET accreditation. Other than research and teaching, he has actively participated in laboratory and curricula design and in the development of College of Engineering during its establishment. Currently, as the ABET coordinator, member of ABET Accreditation Steering Committee, and chair of the ABET Assessment Committee, he is developing processes and introducing new techniques for continuous improvement of educational quality. Dr. Imam has applied techniques to make the assessment and evaluation processes for ABET accreditation easier, and automated these into a software package called CLOSO.
General Motors Research Laboratories, Warren, Michigan, USA 1978 to 1982
Staff Research Engineer, Structural Optimization Group
Job involved research in the area of Computer-Aided Multi-disciplinary Structural Optimization.
Published two very important papers in the area, which were cited by several other authors. One of the publications stands as the first ever publication in “3-D Shape Optimization”.
Advised various automobile-manufacturing divisions on the computer-aided design optimization for solving critical real-world problems.
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA 1977 to 1978
Research Associate & Coordinator, SAP Development Group
Structural Analysis Software Development and Conversion of Codes from CDC to IBM machines.
Coordinated the SAP computer program development.
Contributed to SAP users’ conferences and workshops.
Organized conferences on structural analysis software.
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA 1973 to 1977
Ph.D Student and Research Assistant
The major task during this period was Computer Software Development related to Finite Element Analysis.
1977: Ph.D in Computer Applications in Structural Analysis, Civil Engineering Dept., University of Southern California, USA
GPA close to 3.9/4.00
1973: M.S. in Structural Vibrations and Control, University of Southern California, USA
GPA close to 3.9/4.00
1968: Bachelor of Engineering, N.E.D. University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, Pakistan
First Division