• ACADEMIC ADMINISTRATION
• ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS
• CIVIL ENGINEERING
• ENGINEERING, MATERIALS SCIENCE
• ENGINEERING, PAVEMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
• ENGINEERING, TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING AND PLANNING
• FINITE ELEMENT METHOD
• FINITE ELEMENT SIMULATIONS
• FOUNDATION ENGINEERING
• SOIL MECHANICS
• STATISTICAL ANALYSES
• STRUCTURAL MECHANICS

Jacob Najjar is a Civil Engineering Professor and the former Department Chair (July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2021) of the Civil Engineering (CE) department at the University of Mississippi (UM). Prior to joining UM in July 2012, he was a faculty member, for 19 years, in the Civil Engineering Department at Kansas State University (KSU). During his time at KSU, he also served as the Civil Engineering Interim Department Head from July 2008 till August 2010. Before that, he was an Assistant Professor, for 3 years, in the Department of Civil, Mechanical and Environmental Engineering at George Washington University. Dr. Najjar received his MS and PhD degrees from the University of Oklahoma. Jacob's research is mainly focused on the use of applied information technology via Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) to model various complex engineering systems. To conduct his research, he was able to secure funding from agencies at national, regional, state and local levels. His research efforts have yielded over 100 peer-refereed articles and book chapters, 55 conference proceedings and 45 invited technical presentations. According to Google Scholar, Jacob's work has been cited more than 2,300 times with h-index = 24 & i10-index = 45. During summers of 2002, 2003 and 2006, University of Lille, France has awarded him Invited Professorships to present his research activities in the ANNs area for their faculty and graduate students. This fruitful international collaboration has yielded several PhD dissertations, refereed publications and a lovely marriage! Furthermore, outstanding teaching is very important to Jacob. Accordingly, he has been recognized for his outstanding teaching at the departmental, college, university, regional and national levels. Since 2001, he has received more than ten teaching-related awards/recognitions from students' organizations, CE departments, College of engineering, Kansas State University, and the American Society of Engineering Education.