Issam Khoury
Issam Khoury, Ph.D., P.E., Director of ORITE and Associate Professor of Civil Engineering
Dr. Issam Khoury is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering and serves as the Director of the Ohio Research Institute for Transportation and the Environment (ORITE). Since 1993, he has led and contributed to numerous research initiatives sponsored by the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT), New York Department of Transportation (NYDOT), and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).
Dr. Khoury’s extensive experience in highway infrastructure research includes the instrumentation and analysis of major pavement projects such as the Ohio SHRP project on US-23 in Delaware, the concrete and asphalt pavement studies on US-30 in Wayne County, and the OH-83 perpetual pavement project. His work also spans several key projects in New York, including instrumentation and data collection on I-490 in Rochester, I-86 in Olean, and I-90 in Syracuse.
He has played a pivotal role in testing and instrumentation at the FHWA’s Accelerated Load Facility at Turner-Fairbank and ORITE’s own Accelerated Pavement Load Facility in Lancaster, Ohio. These efforts include the evaluation of variable thickness perpetual pavements as part of the Warm Mix Asphalt Project for ODOT and recent studies on shallow cover HDPE pipes.
Dr. Khoury’s research also encompasses the performance testing of various pipe materials, including plastic, metal, and concrete culverts, as well as recycled HDPE materials. His technical expertise includes field sensor installation, data acquisition and analysis, material sampling and testing for both asphalt and concrete, and laboratory testing to determine material properties for use in design tools such as the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG).
He is also proficient in specialized testing methods such as Dynamic Cone Penetration Testing, Ground Penetrating Radar, and the use of pavement condition assessment tools like the ODOT Pavement Condition Rating (PCR) system. Dr. Khoury has co-authored numerous technical reports and scholarly papers, many of which have been published in leading research journals and presented at national conferences.
