Prof. P.A. Muhammed Basheer Awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire
NITC alumnus and Professor at Leeds University, UK, Prof. P.A. Muhammed Basheer has been awarded the prestigious Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in recognition of 40 years of comprehensive research in the field of civil engineering and concrete technology.
Prof. Basheer graduated in Civil Engineering from TKM Engineering College, Kollam in 1981. He later joined Regional Engineering College Calicut as a Lecturer and completed his PG in Structural Engineering from here in 1986. Subsequently he completed his doctorate and post-doctoral research at Queen's University Belfast, UK and served as a faculty there till 2014. In 2014, he was appointed as the prestigious Chair of Structural Engineering at the University of Leeds, where he is currently a Professor of Structural Engineering. In 2021, he became the first Indian to become the president of the Institute of Concrete Technology. 35 doctorates and 15 post-doctorates related to concrete research have been completed under him. He has more than 400 international journal papers and many projects to his credit. Prof. Basheer is the recipient of several other awards, viz. ACI/James Instruments Award (1991, 1999),the Young Scientist Award from the Department of Science and Technology, Kerala (1991), a special award from the Committee of International Conferences (formerly CANMET/ACI) at Prague (2012) and a lifetime achievement award for his contributions to education, research and technology transfer in the field of concrete and concrete structures from Civil Engineering Research Association of Ireland (2014). An International symposium was held in his name on "Advances in Science and Technology of Concrete" in December 2015 at Mumbai, India. He is a visiting professor in leading universities of the world including IITs and a distinguished member of international organizations including the Irish Academy of Engineering and the UK Royal Academy of Engineering.
Prof Basheer's research includes the development of new test techniques for measuring transport properties of concrete, assessment of the effect of new materials and methods for improving the durability of concrete, prediction of service life of reinforced concrete structures by non-destructive testing and structural health monitoring, relationships between micro-structural properties and the durability of concrete and the use of industrial by-products and waste materials in concrete.