Congratulations to Pouria Bahmani, 2024-2025 CEE Outstanding Junior Faculty Award recipient!
An excerpt from the nomination states: “Pouria works at the interface of academia and industry, and he has experience on both sides. He has had six (or more by now!) proposals funded since arriving at WSU in 2022, resulting in ~$765,000 as PI.Pouria doesn’t just produce peer reviewed publications, he works to change the applicable Building Code or Design Standard, for example using his work to update guidelines on how to retrofit soft-story buildings like apartment buildings with parking on the ground floor or translating his MS student’s thesis into an update to a FEMA publication on seismic resistant construction.
Pouria is a licensed PE in four states and brings a breadth of real-world understanding to his research and our program. His list of collaborators is extensive in discipline and geographic extent, submitting 11 proposals and I assume more by now since arriving here. Not only does Pouria advise five+ graduate students and is an active member of our department, but he cares for and builds networks beyond WSU. For example, he founded the regional Washington Mass Timber Accelerator, which “aims to position the state as a leader in mass timber research, design, manufacturing, and construction” with industry and academic partnerships from across the state.”