Dr. Samer El-Zahab

The story

Where civil engineering meets machine intelligence

Dr. Samer El-Zahab works where civil engineering meets machine intelligence. His research explores how data-driven tools can make infrastructure smarter, construction decisions clearer, and engineering education more effective.

The through-line started with water. During his PhD in Building Engineering at Concordia University, he built sensing systems that listen to pipes — accelerometers and acoustic loggers that catch the vibration signature of a leak before a city loses another million liters. That work grew into a broader question: how much of civil engineering's guesswork can machine learning replace with evidence?

Today, as an Assistant Professor at the American University of the Middle East in Kuwait, he splits his energy between two labs: one where ensemble models scan water networks and predict material behavior, and one where students rehearse construction management on simulations, smart exams, and ABET-aligned assessments that actually teach.