Rate My Professor Hota GangaRao

Hota GangaRao is the Maurice A. and Jo Ann Wadsworth Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at West Virginia University in the Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, a position he attained after joining the institution as an assistant professor in 1969. He earned his Ph.D. and M.S. in Civil Engineering from North Carolina State University in 1969 and 1967, respectively, and a B.S.C.E. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, in 1965. Since 1988, GangaRao has directed the Constructed Facilities Center, designated a Center of Excellence by the U.S. Congress in 2000, and the National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for the Integration of Composites into Infrastructure. These centers support annual research programs valued at approximately $1 to $2 million. A Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers and Structural Engineering Institute, he has developed closed-form mathematical techniques for solving discrete structural systems and field-implemented polymer composite structural components for buildings and bridges.

GangaRao's research specializes in fiber-reinforced polymer composite materials and their applications to infrastructure systems, including highway and railroad bridges, corrosion-resistant storage buildings, economical modular housing, naval vessels, prefabricated pavements, utility poles, high-pressure gas pipes, sheet piling, and natural fiber-reinforced composites. His efforts encompass advanced materials research, recycling of thermoplastic composites, composites for blast and fire resistance, and rapid retrofitting of infrastructure. He has published over 400 technical papers in refereed journals and proceedings, along with textbooks such as Reinforced Concrete Design with FRP Composites and FRP Composite Structures: Theory, Fundamentals, and Design, numerous book chapters, and holds a dozen U.S. patents. GangaRao has advised over 300 M.S. and Ph.D. students and demonstrated innovations through implementations in West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Alaska, and other states. His contributions earned the 2022 Academic Pioneer Award from the American Composites Manufacturers Association, induction into the West Virginia Academy of Civil Engineers in 2017, multiple national awards, and recognition as one of the top five outstanding researchers in WVU's College of Engineering and Mineral Resources for three decades. He has testified before the U.S. House Committee on composites in infrastructure, chaired the PIANC Working Group 191 on Composites for Hydraulic Structures, and served on ASTM committees, with his work featured on CNN, ABC Evening News, KDKA-Pittsburgh, and WV-PBS.