Student spotlight: Issam Qamhia

Issam Qamhia is a doctoral student candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

His Ph.D. focus is transportation engineering, primarily studying soils and aggregates used in pavement base layers.

“The transportation sector is one of the most dynamic sectors in civil engineering, with many quick advancements in technologies such as autonomous vehicles, larger sizes and weights of airplanes, and advancements in rail speeds and efficiency,” Qamhia said. “Yet, the development in infrastructure to cope with these advancements is lacking and much more needs to be done to improve the well-being of the transportation infrastructure. I feel that improving infrastructure is a noble service for the public to ensure access to safe and reliable transportation systems, and that is partly why I chose this topic.”

Qamhia spent time as a graduate research assistant in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UIUC, working on Project R27-168: Field Performance Evaluation of Sustainable Aggregate By-Product Applications, among others. Starting in 2014, he was part of the Transportation Geotechnics Research Group, which allowed him to conduct monotonic shear testing and repeated load permanent deformation testing of pavement unbound aggregates, chemical stabilization and testing of quarry by-products, and large-scale repeated triaxial testing of railroad ballast.

He was also a graduate teaching assistant for several courses including Pavement Design I and Transportation Soils, earning him a space on the 2017 List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent two semesters in a row.

Prior to his time at UIUC, Qamhia studied at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he earned a Master of Science in civil engineering and mechanics. He also holds a Bachelor of Science in civil and environmental engineering from Birzeit University in Palestine.

Qamhia will continue his research as a post-doctoral research associate on several projects related to transportation geotechnics. “The main projects I’ll be working on are related to the development of an advanced analytical tool for flexible pavements design and evaluation, roadway geotechnical modernization solutions for design and construction in the State of Illinois, as well as the design and development of Bender element sensors for field instrumentation,” Qamhia said.

Despite all of the time he spends on research, Qamhia still finds room in his schedule for travel, playing cards and board games, and watching comedy.