Professor Farshid Vahedifard's work has centered around studying the resilience and adaptation of critical infrastructure, including levees and dams, in the face of extreme events (e.g., droughts, floods, wildfires, and cascading hazards) in a changing climate.
Professor Farshid Vahedifard develops transformative and transdisciplinary solutions to tackle grand challenges at the intersection of climate change, resilient infrastructure, and social justice. His interdisciplinary work has centered around studying the resilience and adaptation of critical infrastructure, including levees and dams, in the face of extreme events (e.g., droughts, floods, wildfires, and cascading hazards) in a changing climate. A key emphasis of his research has been focused on addressing the needs and challenges of historically underserved and socially vulnerable communities.
As the Resilient and Equitable Infrastructure Lead at UNU-INWEH, he is leading new transdisciplinary research initiatives focused on emerging issues that relate to climate-resilient communities and infrastructure systems, aging infrastructure, extreme events, cascading hazards, inclusive adaptation, and environmental justice and equity.
He is currently the Berger Chair Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Tufts University and has previously held the CEE Advisory Board Endowed Professorship at Mississippi State University, where he worked as a faculty member for over a decade. He has authored over 200 peer-reviewed articles in journals and conference proceedings and has supervised over 50 postdocs, PhD, and MS students.
Professor Vahedifard is a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the recipient of several awards, including the Norman Medal, MSU Annual Research Award, MS ASCE Engineer of the Year Award, the Best Paper award from the ASTM Geotechnical Testing Journal, and the Federal Laboratory Consortium Interagency Partnership award.