Kamal H. Khayat is the new Vernon and Maralee Jones Chair of Civil Engineering. Khayat was also named director of the Center for Infrastructure Engineering Studies and the Center for Transportation Infrastructure and Safety at Missouri S&T.

Khayat specializes in the development of high-performance cement-based materials for structural applications and rehabilitation projects. He focuses on self-consolidating concrete and high-performance concrete behavior.

Khayat earned his Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. Prior to arriving at S&T this fall, Khayat was director of the Center of Excellence on Concrete Infrastructure Engineering at the Universite de Sherbrooke in Canada. He was also head of the Integrated Research Laboratory on Materials Valorization and Innovative and Durable Structures at Sherbrooke.

Vernon, CE’53, and Maralee Jones endowed the chair in 2006 after making numerous contributions to Missouri S&T. Vernon Jones is the former president of Williams, an energy and communications conglomerate in Tulsa, Okla.