Dr. M.A. Karim

• Position: Professor, Civil Engineering
• Department: Mechanical Engineering
• Office Location: Building 4, Room 326
• mkarim@uwf.edu
• Campus: 850.474.2513
• Curriculum Vitae (CV)

Biography

Dr. Karim had his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Civil Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). He spent about six years as a full-time faculty member at BUET, where his last position was Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering. He then came to the USA and finished his Ph.D. in Civil/Environmental Engineering from Cleveland State University, Ohio. He worked as an Applications Programmer for about three years for ALLTEL Information Services in Twinsburg, Ohio. Then, he worked for about eight years for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VDEQ) as a Senior Environmental Engineer and taught at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) as an Affiliate Professor before he went to Trine University as a full-time Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He taught part-time at Purdue University Fort Wayne (PFW) while employed at Trine University. He also taught at Stratford University, Richmond, Virginia campus, as an adjunct faculty while working for VDEQ. He worked for the then Southern Polytechnic State University (SPSU), now Kennesaw State University (KSU), Marietta Campus, as a full-time faculty in Civil and Construction Engineering. He was the founding program director for BS in Environmental Engineering program.

He has over fifty journal articles, publications, and multiple professional reports. He is a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (F.ASCE), a member of the American Society for Engineering Education (M.ASEE), and a Board-Certified Environmental Engineer (BCEE) from the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists (AAEES). He is a Professional Engineer (PE) for the Commonwealth of Virginia and the State of Georgia. He is also an ABET EAC Program Evaluator Volunteer (PEV) for Civil Engineering and Environmental Engineering Programs and an ABET Commissioner for ETAC. He served as an interim department chair as well as an assistant department chair for about three years at KSU.

Degrees & Institutions

• Ph.D. Civil/Environmental Engineering, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio, August 2000
• M.Sc. Civil/Environmental Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering Technology (BUET), June 1992
• B.Sc. Civil Engineering, BUET, December 1989

Research

Dr. Karim's broad research interests are soil and sediment remediation, environmental management, statistical hydrology, and solid and hazardous waste management and treatment. In the summer of 2012, he worked on sediment remediation with the collaboration of the Army Corps of Engineers, Engineers Research and Development Center (ERDC), Waterways Experiment Station (WES), Vicksburg, MS. His current research interests are solid and hazardous waste management; wastewater treatment and generation of gas/energy from brewery and domestic wastewater; economic comparisons of conventional and MBR wastewater treatment plants; soil stabilization and improvements of soil Engineering properties with fly-ash (FA) and sewage sludge ash (SSA); cement concrete behavior mixed with recycled waste materials; soil/sediment remediation and decontamination by electrokinetics and couple electric-hydraulic gradient, and engineering education including project- and problem-based learning.

Special Interests

Traveling

Publications

Summary: Sixty (60) publications in total in different forms: 27 publications are in peer-reviewed journals (22 as the first author), 20 in peer-reviewed conference proceedings papers (14 as the first author), five invited presentations, three professional reports, two lab manuals, and three other publications. The list is given below by category from 2020 to the present. All of these, and any before 2020, can also be found in my Google Scholar, where you can view the citations. 

Peer Reviewed Journal Publications:

[27] Karim, M. A., Seo, Y., Vargas, B., Rosales, K., Parra, C., Henry, M., and Yun, A. (2024), Optimum Use of Recycled Waste Materials as Partial Replacement of Fine Aggregate in Portland Cement Concrete Mixes, Journal of Waste Management & Recycling Technology, Vol 2, No. 5, September 2024, pp. 1-7, DOI: doi.org/10.47363/JWMRT/2024(2)135

[26] Karim, M. A. and Akinkunmi, I. (2021), Management of Sewage Sludge Ash and Fly-Ash through the Improvement of Soil Engineering Properties, Cosmos Journal Engineering & Technology, Vol 11, No. 2, pp. 1-10, July. Online copy 

[25] Karim, M. A. (2021), Hybrid and Online Synchronous Delivery of Environmental Engineering During COVID-19 Pandemic: A Comparative Study on Perception, Attitude, and Assessment, European Journal of STEM Education, Vol.6, No.1 05, February, pp. 01-11, DOI: https://doi.org/10.20897/ejsteme/9688. 

[24] Karim, M. A., Hassan, A. S. and Hawa, A. (2020), Enhancement of Soil Engineering Properties with Sewage Sludge Ash, MOJ Ecology and Environmental Science, Vol. 5, No. 5, October, pp. 230-236. DOI: 10.15406/mojes/2020.05.00198. 

[23] Karim, M. A., Hassan, A. S. and Kaplan, A. (2020), Optimization of Soil to Fly-Ash Mix Ratio for Enhanced Engineering Properties of Clayey Sand for Subgrade Use, Appl. Sci., Vol.10, No. 20, October, pp. 1-13. https://doi.org/10.3390/app10207038.

[22] Karim, M. A. and Wetterhan, J. T. (2020), A comparative study of solid waste management in the United States, Europe and Asia, Ann Civil Environ Eng., 4, April, pp. 003-011. https://doi.org/10.29328/journal.acee.1001019. 

Conference/Proceedings Publications:

[20] ‪‬Karim, M. A., Seo, Y. and Bhavsar, P. (2024), Do the Independent Studies Help Students Learn Better? A Case Study on Student Perception and Attitude, Proceedings of the 2024 ASEE Annual Conference and Exhibition, Portland, OR, USA, June 23-26, 2024. 

[19] Hossain, M. F. and Karim, M. A.(2023), Application of Solar Energy in Building Design to Eliminate Pathogens Naturally, IEEE Xplore. DOI 10.1109/ICDH60066.2023.00048, July (IEEE).

[18] Akter, M. S., Shahriar, H., Iqbal, I., Hossain, M. F., Karim, M. A. (2023), Clincy, V. and Voicu, R. (2023), Exploring the Vulnerabilities of Machine Learning and Quantum Machine Learning to Adversarial Attacks using a Malware Dataset: A Comparative Analysis. IEEE Xplore. DOI 10.1109/SSE60056.2023.00037, July (IEEE).

[17] ‪‬Karim, M. A. (2023), Does In-Class Problem-Solving Approach Help Students Learn and Improve their Performance? A Case Study, Proceedings of the 2023 ASEE SE Section's Annual Conference, George Mason University, Arlington, VA, March 12-14, 2023. 

[16] Karim, M. A. and Adhikari, S. (2022), Does the Active Learning Help Students Learn and Improve their Performance? A Case Study of Engineering and Management, Proceedings of the 2022 ASEE Annual Conference, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 26-29, 2022. Online Copy

[15] Karim, M. A. (2022), Do the Prerecorded Lecture Videos Help Students’ Learning During COVID-19 Pandemic? A Case Study, Proceedings of the 2022 ASEE SE Section's Annual Conference, The Citadel, Charleston, SC, March 13-15, 2022. Online copy

[14] Karim, M. A. (2022), Online Synchronous Delivery of Environmental Engineering During COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study on Assessment, Proceedings of the 2022 ASEE SE Section's Annual Conference, The Citadel, Charleston, SC, March 13-15, 2022. Online copy

[13] Karim, M. A. (2021), Online Synchronous Delivery of Environmental Engineering During COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study on Perception and Attitude, Proceedings of the 2021 ASEE SE Section's Annual Conference, Virtual, March 07-10, 2021. Online copy

Invited Presentations:

[5] Presented a topic titled “Beneficial Use of Fly-Ash through Soil Stabilization and Portland Cement Concrete Mix” in World of Coal Ash Conference 2024, 13 - 16 May, held at Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA. Online copy.

[4] Presented a topic titled “A Comparative Study of Solid Waste Management in the United States, Europe & Asia” in an International Conference on Waste Business and Management, Organized by Pakistan ACADEMY of Environmental Sciences and Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency, September 12-13, 2023 (Virtual video presentation).

[3] Presented a topic titled “Waste Regulations and Global Management” in an annual meeting of National Safety Council (NSC) held at MGM Resorts, Oxon Hill, Maryland on February 14, 2023.

[2] Presented “A Comparative Study of Solid Waste Management in the United States, Europe & Asia” at the Fairbank Museum in Atlanta, GA, organized by SCS Engineers on May 10, 2022.

Other Publications:

[4] Karim, M. A. (2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, and 2023), Laboratory Manual for Environmental Engineering: Part II, Tavenner Publishing Company, 406 Sutton Place, Anderson, SC 29621, First Edition, December 2016, ISBN: N/A; Second Edition, December 2017, ISBN: 978-1-943712-96-0, and Third Edition, December 2020, ISBN: 978-1-64220-117-8 (paperback); 978-1-64220-122-2 (eBook).

[3] Karim, M. A. (2013, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2023), Laboratory Manual for Environmental Engineering: Part I, Tavenner Publishing Company, 406 Sutton Place, Anderson, SC 29621, First Edition, July 2013, ISBN: 978-1-937435-64-6, Second Edition, July 2014, ISBN: 978-1-937435-72-1, and Third Edition, July 2016, ISBN: 978-1-943712-31-1, Fourth Edition, December 2018, ISBN: 978-1-6422003-4-8, and Fifth Edition, December 2020, ISBN: 978-1-64220-116-1 (paperback); 978-1-64220-115-4 (eBook).