bio & identity—
i am a lebanese-palestinian, associate professor at vanderbilt university with primary appointment in civil & environmental engineering and a secondary one in electrical & computer engineering. as a palestinian refugee, i was born in beirut in 1989 and have been living in america since 2011 —
my work sits at the intersection of systems science, control, optimization, and infrastructure, with applications spanning energy, water, transportation, and cyber-physical systems. my broader objective is to advance the theory and practice of dynamic infrastructure systems while educating students across engineering disciplines and contributing to the academic community through teaching, advising, editorial leadership, and service —
away from research, i enjoy teaching my classes (my students have different feelings about this) and I much prefer teaching over being stuck in airports —
i believe that great research happens at the interface between mentors and mentees, students and advisers, and i am very lucky to have truly exceptional graduate students translating some of my terrible ideas into great ones with their hard work and dedication —
current appointments
Vanderbilt University
Tenured Associate Professor, August 2021-Present
Primary appointment: Civil & Environmental Engineering
Secondary appointment: Electrical & Computer Engineering
research and teaching focus
Real-time control, monitoring, and optimization theory with applications to critical infrastructure and smart cities.
Infrastructure system analysis, dynamic systems sciences, engineering optimization, and numerical methods for engineers.
contact
Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
Vanderbilt University
2201 West End Ave, Nashville, TN 37235
education
Purdue University
Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, 2015
Thesis: Secure Estimation, Optimization & Control of Cyber-Physical Systems with Applications to Power Networks
American University of Beirut
B.E. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, 2011
Minors: Mathematical Sciences and Engineering Management
research and teaching interests
professional trajectory
Vanderbilt University
Tenured Associate Professor in Civil & Environmental Engineering, with secondary appointment in Electrical & Computer Engineering.
The University of Texas at San Antonio
Assistant Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering; taught controls and optimization, secured multi-agency funding, and published broadly in smart infrastructure systems.
Argonne National Laboratory
Visiting Researcher in the Center for Energy, Environmental, & Economic Systems Analysis.
University of Toronto
Visiting Researcher in Electrical and Computer Engineering, working on power-system operation and dynamics.
Purdue University
Graduate Research and Teaching Assistant in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Mechanical Engineering.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Summer Research Intern in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, with work on traffic monitoring and virtual city testbeds.
selected research funding
Recent and representative awards
Research support includes projects from ARPA-E, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, IEEE, and university sources, with themes spanning energy systems, water networks, transportation, and cyber-physical security.
- ARPA-E IMAGINED, Co-PI, 2025-2028
- NSF CyberTraining, Lead PI, 2023-2027
- NSF CAREER, Lead PI, 2021-2026
- NSF collaborative awards on water networks, power systems, traffic sensing, and networked dynamical systems
student advising and mentorship
Vanderbilt University
Advising includes Ph.D. students, postdoctoral researchers, and collaborative mentoring across civil, environmental, electrical, and systems-oriented topics.
Recent advisees include students working on drinking water networks, nonlinear power-system models, infrastructure optimization, and cyber-physical systems.
Earlier advising at UTSA
Supervised and co-supervised graduate students across controls, smart grids, sensing, state estimation, and network science, in addition to mentoring undergraduate researchers.
teaching
Vanderbilt University
- CE 4240 - Infrastructure Systems Engineering
- CE 5999 - Engineering Convex Optimization
- CE 2898 - Intro to Numerical Methods in CEE
The University of Texas at San Antonio
- EE 1322 - Introduction to ECE
- EE 3413 - Analysis and Design of Control Systems
- EE 5143 - Linear Systems and Control
- EE 5243 - Optimization and Control of CPS
- EE 6953/6952 - Independent Study
service and editorial leadership
editorial roles
- Associate Editor, IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems
- Electronics Publications Chair, IEEE Control Systems Society
- Associate Editor, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid
- Guest Editor for IEEE Open Journal of Control Systems, Annual Reviews in Control, and IEEE Access
university service
- Chair, Senate Affairs Committee, Vanderbilt University
- Member, Vanderbilt University Faculty Senate
- Member of Ph.D. committees and faculty search committees
- Previous service at UTSA across awards, graduate recruitment, search committees, and seminar organization