Dr. Mihai O. Marasteanu, Professor Department of Civil, Environmental and Geo- Engineering Minneapolis, USA

Dr. Marasteanu is Professor of Civil Engineering and leads the asphalt materials research program in the Department of Civil Engineering at University of Minnesota. He received Ph.D. and MS degrees from The Pennsylvania State University, where he was member of the research team that developed the Performance Grade (PG) specifications for asphalt binders, and Engineering Diploma from Technical University of Bucharest, Romania.  

Dr. Marasteanu has published over 100 papers in peer reviewed journals and conference proceedings and over 40 research reports. He was principal investigator of two major national pooled fund studies on low temperature cracking in asphalt pavements that resulted into the development of the first performance based specification for asphalt mixtures based on fracture tests and fracture mechanics concepts. His research group has developed two testing methods for asphalt mixture characterization that are now provisional AASHTO standards.

Dr. Marasteanu is member of TRB AFK20 Committee on Characteristics of Bituminous Materials and was for many years member of FHWA Asphalt Binder Expert Task Group.  He has served as proposal reviewer for the National Science Foundation, Canadian National Research Council, and for the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in UK. He is associate editor of the international journal of Road Materials and Pavement Design.