persongroup

ABOUT
Kimberly Kurtis
Professor, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Scholarship, College of Engineering
kkurtis@gatech.edu
404.385.0825
Mason 4154

Dr. Kimberly (Kim) E. Kurtis is Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Scholarship in the College of Engineering, where she manages the reappointment, tenure, peer review, and selection processes for the College’s faculty and researchers, leads faculty development initiatives, and assists with management of faculty hiring strategies and inclusion programs. She is a Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, serving as interim Chair in the school (2017-18) and as the College’s ADVANCE Professor (2012-14), and holds a courtesy appointment in the School of Materials Science and Engineering.

Dr. Kurtis joined Tech’s faculty in January 1999. She earned her BSE (1994) in Civil Engineering from Tulane University under a Deans Honor Scholarship and her MS (1995) and PhD (1998) in Civil Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, where she was a Henry Hilp Fellow and a National Science Foundation (NSF) Fellow. Dr. Kurtis’s innovative research on the multi-scale structure and performance of cement-based materials has resulted in more than 200 technical publications, as well as three US patents. Her group is particularly recognized its use of emerging methods and novel approaches to provide new fundamental insights into the behavior of cement pastes, mortars, and concretes necessary for improving their early age behavior and long-term durability.

She has held two leadership positions – Chairman of ACI Committee 236: Materials Science of Concrete (2006-2012) and Chair of American Ceramic Society’s Cements Division (2008-2009) – central to advancing science-based research on cement-based materials. Dr. Kurtis has served as Associate Editor of ASCE Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering and on the Editorial Board of Cement and Concrete Composites. Currently, she is Editorial Board member for Cement and Concrete Research and is one of twelve members of the American Concrete Institute’s Technical Activities Committee. She has been honored with ACI’s Walter P. Moore, Jr. Faculty Achievement Award (2005), ACI’s Del Bloem Award for Service (2013), Outstanding Senior Undergraduate Research Mentor Award at Georgia Institute of Technology (2013), the ACI James Instruments Award for Research on NDE of Concrete (2008), Award for Outstanding Article in ASTM’s Journal of Testing and Evaluation (2010), and ASCE’s Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize (2013). Dr. Kurtis is Fellow of the American Concrete Institute and the American Ceramics Society.  

PUBLICATIONS & PATENTS
Selected publications: 
ARTICLES
  • M.N.N. Rashidi, A. Paul, J.-Y. Kim, L.J. Jacobs, and K.E. Kurtis, “Insights into delayed ettringite formation through acoustic nonlinearity”, Cem. Concr. Research, in press.
  • C.W. In, K. Arne, J.Y. Kim, K.E. Kurtis, and L.J. Jacobs, “Estimation of crack depth in concrete using diffuse ultrasound: Validation in Cracked Concrete Beams, “ J. Nondestructive Evaluation, V.36(1):4,2017.
  • G. Kim, J.Y. Kim, K.E. Kurtis, and L.J. Jacobs, “Drying shrinkage in concrete assessed by nonlinear ultrasound”, Cem. Concr. Res., V92:16-20, 2017.
  • N. Mayercsik, S. Bresard, M. Vandamme, and K.E. Kurtis “Using fractal geometry to recover the 3D air void, scale-independent, microstructure information from 2D sections of mortars”, ASTM Advances in Civil Engineering Materials, (invited), V.5 (2), 1-21, 2016.
  • C.R. Shearer, J.L. Provis, S.A. Bernal, and K.E. Kurtis, “Alkali-activation potential of biomass-coal co-fired fly ash”, Cem. Conc. Res., October 2016, V.73:62-74, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cemconcomp.2016.06.014.
BOOKS
  • R.B. Holland, L.F Kahn, and K.E. Kurtis “Chapter 7: Effect of different concrete materials on the corrosion of embedded reinforcing steel”, in Corrosion of Steel in Concrete Structures, Woodhead Publishing, Ed. A. Poursaee, p.131-48, ISBN: 9781782423812,2016.
  • T.L. White, T. B. Calloway, R.L. Brigmon, K.E. Kurtis, and A.R. Jayapalan, “Applications in Complex Opaque Slurry Systems, in Laser Scanning, Theory and Applications”, in Laser Scanning, Theory and Applications, Ed. C.-C. Wang, IN-TECH, ISBN 978-953-307-205-0, April 2011.
PROCEEDINGS
  • B. Zaribaf and K.E. Kurtis, “Compatibility of Water Reducing Admixtures with Metakaolin-Portland Limestone Cement Blends”, Proc. LC3, Havana, Cuba, December 2017.
  • A. Hashemi, K.M. Donnell, M. Rashidi, and K.E. Kurtis “Effect of Exposure Conditions on the Long-Term Dieletric Properties of Mortar Samples Containing ASR Gel”, Proc. 42nd Annual Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation (QNDE), 2016.
  • R.B. Holland, L.F. Kahn, and K.E. Kurtis “Sulfate resistance of ternary blended concrete: influence of binder composition on performance, “ ACI SP-xxx, to be presented at Fall 2016 Convention, Philadelphia, November 2016.
  • Loreto, G., Gentry, R., Kurtis, K., Kahn, L. “Self-Roughening Concrete with Enhanced Shear Friction Capacity for Cold Joint Applications,” RILEM International Concrete Sustainability Conference, Washington, DC, May 15-18, 2016.
  • C. Gupta, E. Nadelman, K.E. Kurtis, and N.R. Washburn, “Lignopolymer Superplasticizers for Alternative Supplementary Cementitious Materials” Proc. 1st Int. Conf. on Grand Challenges in Construction Materials, Los Angeles, March 17-18, 2016, pp.7 at http://www.igcmat.com/papers/Washburn_igcmat_2016.pdf
PRESENTATIONS
  • “Novel Alternative Cementitious Materials for the Development of Sustainable Infrastructure”, Federal Highway Administration, Turner-Fairbank Laboratory, McLean, VA, October 29, 2015.
  • “Beneficiation of Cementitious Composites with Bio-Derived Fibers: Understanding the Roles of Fiber Chemistry & Morphology”, Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar, Princeton University, October 16, 2014.
  • “Effects of Titanium Dioxide on the Structure and Performance of Cement-based Materials”, Civil and Environmental Engineering Seminar, University of South Florida, September 29, 2014.
  • R. Gentry, L.F. Kahn, K.E. Kurtis, and G. Loreto (speaker) “Self-consolidating concrete construction for modular units”, DOE Annual Meeting, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Charlotte, NC,October 21, 2014.
  • C.R. Shearer (speaker) and K.E. Kurtis, “The Pozzolanic Reactivity of Biomass and Co-fired Fly Ash,” American Concrete Institute Fall 2013 Convention, Phoenix, AZ, Oct. 20-24, 2013.
 
Patents: 
  • Gaurav Sant, Magdalena Balonis-Sant, and Kimberly E. Kurtis “Photoactivity and Ion-Exchange as New Routes to Corrosion Inhibition in Reinforced Concrete”, Preliminary US Patent Application 61/643,858 filed at UCLA, May 30, 2012.
  • Hiroki Nanko and Kimberly E. Kurtis, “Fiber Reinforced Mineral-based Materials and Methods of Making the Same,” International patent application PCT/US01/42979, U.S. patent 6966038, issued August 23, 2005.
  • Reza Zoughi, Aaron D. Benally, Karl J. Bois, and Kimberly E. Kurtis, “Microwave Determination Related to a Material Such as Chloride Found in a Cement Based Composition,” U.S. patent 6614240 held by Colorado State University, issued September 2, 2003.