Mir M. Ali

About

Mir M. Ali is Professor Emeritus and former Chairman (1993-2003; 2007-2011) of the Structures Division of the School of Architecture at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Currently he is teaching there as an Adjunct Professor. He was twice recognized by the University’s Chancellor for academic excellence (1999, 2009). He is a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and received ASCE’s Millennium Challenge Prize (1999) for his winning article on skyscrapers in a world-wide competition. He is also a Fellow of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH).

Dr. Ali was the Chairman of CTBUH’s Committee 30-Architecture (1990-1998) and a Group Leader of its Group PA-Planning and Architecture (1998-2005) overseeing eight topical committees. He also served on the following CTBUH committees: Committee 3-Structural Systems (1990-2000); Committee 14-Analysis and Design (1990-2000); Advisory Council for Lynn S. Beedle Award and Fazlur R. Khan Medal (2004); and Height Committee (2004). Dr. Ali had been a long time member of CTBUH’s Steering Group until 2005 and then Advisory Group until 2011. He was the founding editor of the Council’s CTBUH Journal (1999-2002). He has been interviewed on tall buildings by the New York Times, Toronto Star, Chicago Sun Times, Chicago Daily Herald, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The Architectural Record, Spectrum, Rolling Stones, Popular Science, Discovery Channel, Travel Channel, MSNBC, NPR, IPR, PRI, AP, and several others.

He was a TOKTEN Fellow of the United Nations sponsored by the Government of Bangladesh (1989). He was a member of the Advisory Committee, Strategic Transportation Planning (STP) of the Government of Bangladesh (2003-2005). Funded by National Science Foundation, he and his group organized two international conferences in the United States and Bangladesh (1993, 1995) on floods along the Mississippi River, and in Bangladesh. His considerable industrial experience includes Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, and Sargent & Lundy in Chicago. He has worked as a consultant for tall building projects in Canada, Singapore, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, United Sates, and the United Arab Emirates. He worked as a consultant for the US Army Corps of Engineers. He served as a member of the Fazlur R. Khan Chair Advisory Committee at Lehigh University (1990-2003). He received a Fulbright Award (2008) to study the feasibility of constructing tall buildings in Malta. He has authored a book titled, Art of the Skyscraper: The Genius of Fazlur Khan, and edited three books, Architecture of Tall Buildings; Bangladesh Floods: Views from Home and Abroad; and Catalyst for Skyscraper Revolution: Lynn S. Beedle--A Legend in His Lifetime. His two more recent books are: The Skyscraper and the City: Design, Technology and Innovation, co-authored with Lynn S. Beedle and Paul J. Armstrong, and The Future of the City: Tall Buildings and Urban Design, co-authored with Kheir Al-Kodmany. He has published over 130 papers and articles, and given numerous papers and invited seminars on tall buildings and other topics at conferences regionally, nationally and internationally.