He earned his Bachelor’s degree from Beirut Arab University in 2001, Master’s degree from Michigan State University in 2003 and his PhD from Purdue University in 2008, all in Civil Engineering. After finishing his Ph.D., Prof. El Mohtar worked for 3 months as a postdoctoral fellow at Purdue University before joining the Geotechnical Engineering group in Fall 2008. As a teacher, Prof. El Mohtar combines state-of-the-art field applications with academics so that students are prepared for the workplace. He has developed physical and computer models to simulate soil behavior so students can better visualize the various geotechnical phenomena.