Imperial reader receives ASCE's prestigious Huber Prize

Dr Kaveh Madani

Dr Kaveh Madani, Centre for Environmental Policy, will receive the Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize (also known as the Huber Award) is considered as the highest level mid-career research prize in civil engineering and is awarded for outstanding achievements and contributions in research with respect to all disciplines of civil engineering.

Dr Madani receives this prize “for groundbreaking research in developing methods for the allocation of scarce water resources merging conflict-resolution and game-theoretic concepts for application to complex water resources systems.” The award selection committee of ASCE particularly noted his “outstanding leadership in the application of systems analysis to environmental, water and energy resource problems.”

Dr Madani is known internationally for the successful integration of game theory into traditional water resources management. Last year, he received the Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Young Scientists from the European Geosciences Union (EGU) for his “fundamental contributions to integrating game theory and decision analysis into conventional water resources management”, making him the first Imperial recipient of a union-level award from EGU.

Recognition of Madani’s work by two of the world’s prominent scientific and engineering bodies reflects the value of his interdisciplinary research contributions to both science and engineering.

Dr Madani’s core research interests and experiences include integrated water, environmental, and energy resources engineering and management. His work includes application of systems engineering, conflict resolution, system dynamics, economics, optimization as well as simulation and modelling methods to water, environmental, and energy resource problems at different scales to derive policy and management insights.

Dr Madani joined Imperial in 2013, after a successful career as an assistant professor at the University of Central Florida (UCF). Back in 2012, he received another recognition from ASCE as a New Face of Civil Engineering for notable achievements in civil engineering before the age of 30.

Founded in 1852, ASCE is the oldest engineering society in the United States with more than 150,000 members of the civil engineering profession in 177 countries. The ASCE’s Civil Engineering Research Prize was first established in 1946 to stimulate research in civil engineering and was awarded for the first time in 1949. This prize was renamed in 1964 in honour Walter Huber, a past president of ASCE.

According to the rules of the award, the nominees must either be under 40 years of age at the time of nomination or have worked no more than 12 years since receiving their doctoral degree, whichever is less restrictive. The Huber awardees are generally younger than 45 and have demonstrated a level of achievement and excellence that bodes well for a long and fruitful career. ASCE typically awards three to five Huber Prizes each year. Dr Madani is the first Imperial researcher receiving this prestigious recognition.