His Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in civil engineering are from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. From 2002 to 2005, he worked at Hodnett Hurst Engineers, Inc., a structural engineering consulting firm in Huntsville, Ala. His research interests include structural risk and reliability at the component, structure, and regional levels; response of structures to extreme events and innovative methods for structural protection; experimental investigation of structural response; and performance-based evaluation and design of structures.