David W. Johnston, Ph.D., P.E., Hon.M.ACI, NAC, Dist.M.ASCE, the Edward I. Weisiger distinguished professor emeritus in construction engineering at North Carolina State University, has been honored with election by ASCE for its class of 2025 distinguished members. He is recognized for his advancement of civil and construction engineering through bridge management research, formwork design and safety, and construction planning of linear projects.
Johnston is also recognized for serving and being a leader in construction engineering education, engineering accreditation, and the professional engineering licensure process. As such, he has successfully spearheaded an effort to establish a new discipline for the PE exam. His achievements truly define this construction engineer without parallel as “the father of professional licensure for construction engineers.”
He is regarded as the designer of the modern construction engineering program at NC State. There he established both a master’s and a doctoral program while actively engaging in activities to set down and maintain criteria for the ABET accreditation of the undergraduate construction engineering degree program. This work included service as an ABET program evaluator for 18 years and on the ASCE Committee on Curricula and Accreditation from 1999 to 2012.
Johnston’s drive led the National Council of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors and all state engineering licensing boards to recognize construction engineering as a discipline for the CE professional engineering exam. His efforts continued by chairing the exam module development process. It was through these extraordinary efforts that the field gained deserved attention.
His contributions to both the accreditation process and the licensing process have served the construction engineering discipline well with significant global impact as engineers trained in the U.S. are often involved in large infrastructure projects throughout the world.
Johnston was elected to the National Academy of Construction in 2015 as “the individual most responsible for providing a path to Professional Engineering licensure for construction engineers practicing construction.”
He was selected for ASCE’s Roebling Award in 2013 and is an honorary member of the American Concrete Institute. He is the author of the 2014 edition of the ACI SP-4 Formwork for Concrete design manual and received the 2003 ACI Delmar Bloem Award for Distinguished Service.
In ASCE-CI he served as chair of the Construction Research Council and as organizer and chair of the Construction Engineering Education Committee. In ASCE-SEI, he has been a member of the Committee on Design Loads and Structures During Construction, ASCE 37, since its formation in 1989.
Following his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. studies at NC State University, Johnston worked as a consulting engineer on buildings, bridges, and nuclear containment structures for seven years.
