Alia Amer, PhD
Postdoctoral Researcher
NHERI Lehigh Real-time Cyber-Physical Structural Systems Testing Laboratory
Lehigh University

My name is Alia Amer. I'm originally from Cairo, Egypt. I did my bachelor's there in structural engineering. I worked in industry – and also taught – in Cairo for three years. In 2016 I came to Lehigh University, where I did my masters and PhD. I worked on the NSF-funded Tallwood project here at Lehigh, which focused on developing seismically resilient tall wood buildings,. I earned my PhD last May and then got a postdoc position at the NHERI facility at Lehigh.

What do you consider your specialties as a researcher?

Definitely, seismic resilience of structures is my main focus. I am so proud that I was involved in a large-scale testing project! It's very rare that a female gets involved in a big project like this and is responsible for a such a big project. I was the boss and the student and everything. Here at Lehigh, we were focusing on the behavior of the structural components under multidirectional loading. We built part of a timber building and tested it here, multiple times, to investigate different aspects of the project.

So, I consider myself also an experimentalist. I have expertise in conducting large-scale testing— from the sensors, the control, how to control actuators, how to run the whole specimen, how to design the fixtures, and so on. These are my hidden talents.

How you first became interested in engineering?

This is a funny story, because I come from a family of medical doctors. No one is an engineer in my family. I am the first one. They were so surprised that I would not be extending their legacy. But I have a kind of rebellious character. I wanted to have my own identity. I was so interested in math and physics. I was always interested in watching documentaries about how things are built, how cars work, and all this kind of stuff. I said, ‘Okay, I'm good at math. I'm just going to pick engineering.’ So I applied to the engineering school. In Egypt, in the first year of engineering you get exposed to general topics. I was very good at mechanics and physics. It was very fun. Calculations related to structures —stresses and that kind of thing — were fun for me. It wasn't hard. And I enjoyed it. So I picked civil engineering. It was a good choice.

Why do you leave industry and for academia?

Well, I didn’t actually leave academia. I graduated at the top of my class in Cairo. And when you're in the top, they give you a teaching position. They want to keep you. I was appointed a lecturer position where I was teaching design courses.

But in parallel, I also worked in industry as a design engineer. That was fun at the beginning, but it became repetitive, basically due to the nature of the projects. After a while, there were no challenges, and I like challenges!

So being a design engineer, sitting in the office designing columns and beams, just didn’t suit my personality. I want to always have new, different problems to solve. And I like teaching, I really like to be involved with the students.

What's your teaching approach?

I always want my students to have a better experience than mine; that's always my vision. Whenever I enter a class, I want them to enjoy it as much as they can. I also want them to feel that they are my colleagues, like we're learning from each other.

For example in engineering design classes, I was teaching new systems, but the students also had to be creative. Which enabled me to learn from them, too. Also, when students feel like they're important, that what they’re designing is appreciated by their professor — they gain confidence — so they are less afraid of making mistakes. I’m really comfortable with this friendly approach. Also, I was a young instructor, and I think it helped a lot that I was closer in age to my students.

Also, I was very keen to always get feedback after a couple of lectures, not just at the end of the semester. So, after a couple of lectures, I would ask them, ‘Do you guys do have any ideas? Do you like this? What don't you like?’ So I was always changing my teaching approach. Even during the semester, I didn’t feel I had to stick to something that wasn’t working.

Here at Lehigh, one of my professors had a medical emergency, and I was assigned to teach one of his classes. So, I have taught in the U.S. as well as in Egypt.
 

Small-scale testing

Testing during the pandemic