Zhishen WU, professor and department head of civil engineering at Ibaraki University in Japan and Director of its Center for Disaster Prevention and Safety Studies, has assumed office as the President of ISHMII as of January 1, 2017. From July through December 2016, Dr. Wu, who was then the Vice President for Finance, served as President-Elect as well as fulfilling his responsibilities on the Executive Committee.
Congratulations to Dr. Zhishen Wu.
Dr. Wu is also a professor of civil engineering and the founding Dean of the International Institute for Urban Systems Engineering, an interdisciplinary and major center of excellence, and Special Assistant to the President at Southeast University, in Nanjing, China. He received BS and MS from Southeast University, in 1983 and 1986, respectively. He earned his PhD from Nagoya University, Japan in 1990. His research interests include advanced sensor technologies, FRP composite technologies, structural health/risk/disaster monitoring, control and management, and sustainable infrastructure. He has published 8 books and over 600 papers in refereed journals and international conference proceedings including over 60 keynote or invited papers, among which over 150 journal papers and 30 keynote or invited papers are related to structural health monitoring and intelligent infrastructure. He also holds 50 authorized patents. Although about half of his research papers have been published in Japanese or Chinese journals, his publications in English have also received wide citations, e.g. his total citation in Scopus is over 4000 times. He was awarded the JSCE Research Award by the Japan Society of Civil Engineering in 1990, the JSCM Technology Award from the Japan Society for Composite Materials in 2005, and 2009 SHM Person of the Year Award from the International Journal of Structural Health Monitoring, National Prize for Progress in Science and Technology of China in 2012 and IIFC medal from International Institute of FRP in Construction in 2016, among other recognition.
He has been the committee chairman or board member of numerous national and international scientific societies. He served as the Chair of the JSCE Research Committee on Structural Health Monitoring for Concrete Structures, 2004-2009; as a council member of China Civil Engineering Society; as the chairman of China chemical fibers association committee on basalt fibers, as an executive Member of ISHMII from 2003-2011, as a Vice president from 2013 to date and as the Vice President of International Institute for FRP in Construction (IIFC), 2006-2012. Moreover, he serves as an editor, associate editor, editorial board member for more than ten international journals, including the founding Editor-in-Chief of the International of Sustainable Materials and Structural Systems and guest editor of about 10 special issues on SHM. He has led over 10 important and large scale joint research projects in both Japan and China, and is presently leading a national 973 research project on “the use of FRP composites to achieve high performance and longevity for major engineering structures (2012-17), in China. He led to complete many standards and guidelines on SHM including JSCE guideline on SHM of concrete structures, China Association for Engineering Construction Standardization on fiber optic sensing and monitoring systems etc. He also leads a consortium committee for promoting SHM of railway infrastructures in Japan. He were elected as follows of ASCE, JSCE, ISHMII, and IIFC.
In addition to his scholarly achievements, Dr. Wu has been very active in education and training a large number of students in the areas of SHM and FRP. He has supervised an impressive number of graduate and post-graduate students and scholars, including over 70 M.S., 35 Ph.D., 20 post-doctoral and more than 20 visiting scholars, some of whom have won the best paper awards and received other recognition in recent years; some are pictured above.
Dr. Wu joined ISHMII in 2003 as an individual member and a representative of corporate member (Ibaraki University) and now is a representative of two ISHMII corporate members (Ibaraki University, Japan, and Southeast University, China). He was the conference coordinate of the 1st SHMII conference and took part in the initial discussions on the formation of ISHMII. He served on the ISHMII Executive Committee in the position of the Secretary (2003-2006) and the conference coordinator (2007-2011), Council member (2003-date) and VP for Finance from 2013, one of associate editors of JCSHM and the leader of task force on ISHMII standardization for developing ISHMII guideline on SHM of civil infrastructures.