Rate My Professor Spencer Quiel

Spencer Quiel is an Associate Professor of Structural Engineering and Associate Chair in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Lehigh University. He also serves as Associate Director of the Institute for Cyber Physical Infrastructure and Energy. Quiel earned his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Princeton University in 2009 on a Department of Homeland Security Graduate Fellowship, which included two months at the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Building and Fire Research Laboratory studying the fire-related collapse of the World Trade Center Twin Towers. He holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Notre Dame in 2004. Before joining Lehigh University, he worked for four years as a structural engineer at Hinman Consulting Engineers in Washington, D.C., performing analysis and design of structures to resist blast, fire, and progressive collapse loads. Quiel is a licensed Professional Engineer in Pennsylvania and Virginia and maintains active memberships in the American Society of Civil Engineers, American Institute of Steel Construction, and Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute.

Dr. Quiel's research examines the resistance of buildings, bridges, tunnels, and other structures to extreme loads, with particular emphasis on fire, blast, and progressive collapse. His research group conducts experimental testing of large-scale structural assemblies, characterization of material performance under extreme conditions, and diverse numerical analysis methods. His projects have received more than $1.5 million in funding from the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Transportation, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, American Institute of Steel Construction, and Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute. Quiel has published his findings in domestic and international journals and presented at conferences across the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. Key publications include “A non-emulative moment connection for progressive collapse resistance in precast concrete building frames” (Engineering Structures, 2019, with Naito and Fallon); “Performance-based framework for evaluating the flexural response of precast concrete wall panels to blast loading” (Engineering Structures, 2018, with Gombeda and Naito); “Blast and the potential for progressive collapse in building frames: A threat-dependent framework with damage mapping” (Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities, 2017, with Gombeda, Naito, and Fallon); “A streamlined framework and case study for calculating the response of bridges to open-air tanker truck fires” (Fire Safety Journal, 2015, with Yokoyama, Bregman, Mueller, and Marjanishvili); and “Predicting the demand and plastic capacity of axially loaded steel beam-columns with thermal gradients” (Engineering Structures, 2014, with Garlock, Dwaikat, and Kodur). He serves as Vice Chair of the PCI Blast Resistance and Structural Integrity Committee, was a member of the ASCE Fire Resistance Committee from 2008 to 2017, and provides technical advisory services on major infrastructure projects and bridge failure investigations. Quiel teaches courses including CEE 465 Structural Fire Engineering.