Kishor C. Mehta received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Michigan and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. He joined the National Science Foundation as Director for Hazard Mitigation and Structural Engineering Program within the Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation in the Engineering Directorate in September 2011. Prior to that date he was P.W. Horn Professor of Civil Engineering and former Director of the Wind Science Engineering (WISE) Research Center at Texas Tech University.
He is Member of the National Academy of Engineering (2004) and Distinguished Member of ASCE (2002). He chaired the wind load subcommittee of ASCE 7 during development of ANSI A58.1-1982, ASCE 7-88 and ASCE 7-95. He directed the 10-year long, NSF funded Cooperative Program on Wind Engineering (with Colorado State University) and the NIST/TTU Cooperative Program of Windstorm Mitigation Initiative.He has devoted the last 41 years in teaching, conducting research, offering short courses and seminars, and consulting for problems relating to wind loads and wind damage.
Over the past decade, he developed a doctoral degree program in Wind Science and Engineering at Texas Tech University with funding from the NSF’s Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) Program; the degree was approved by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board in July 2007. To date 17 students are granted Ph.D. degrees in Wind Science and Engineering.
