Dr. Karaa's academic and industrial career has focused on enterprise and project management systems and analytics, comprehensive resilience solutions and the cost-effective life-cycle management of infrastructure systems and constructed facilities.

As an Educator, he has pioneered the development of inter-disciplinary programs and courses, such as the MS in Critical Infrastructure Systems and Construction Management specializations within the CEE curriculum, He is an expert in critical infrastructure and environmental systems, project evaluation and finance, utility management systems and construction management, with emphasis on analytical applications.

His teaching philosophy and approach combining the state of the art and state of the practice have won him the accolades of his Students and Colleagues alike, and have Achieved top marks in teaching evaluations for over ten years at NJIT, and excellence in teaching awards at the College of Engineering and the Institute levels.

Dr. Karaa has led a range of research and development projects and developed several management systems sponsored by the University Transportation Research Center, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, the New Jersey Department of Transportation, the US Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and the National Science Foundation on decision support and expert systems for capital improvement planning, large-scale program planning and scheduling systems, integrated risk and resilience modeling for combined cost-effective multi-hazard flood protection and mitigation strategies, and underground infrastructure asset management, performance and condition assessment, predictive modeling and risk assessment.

He led a comprehensive post-Sandy large multi-disciplinary team in the development of multi-tiered structural and non-structural flood protection strategies for the Hackensack/Meadowlands area. Under the sponsorship of federal and state agencies, he undertook the multi-criteria evaluation and lifecycle analysis of two of the largest pipeline projects in the Greater Boston Area, and developed decision support systems for capital improvement planning and maintenance management of key underground infrastructure network projects for the US Army Corps of Engineers, and water and wastewater agencies and municipalities. He managed the requirements analysis, design and development of a permitting management system integrated with the master planning system for the Central Artery project, developed an intelligent water treatment compliance management system of a worldwide Army Installation inventory of water supply chain facilities. He also developed a hierarchical asset connectivity model and management system for Intelligent Transportation systems fiber-optic communication networks, and an exchange platform architecture for a cross-utility safe excavation system.

Dr. Karaa has developed and taught graduate and undergraduate courses at NJIT, Northeastern University, MIT and Tufts University covering performance, security and risk analysis of infrastructure systems, construction management, and project evaluation, financing and controls. As a Dean at Notre-Dame University, he developed and taught a Corporate Strategy course, which was ranked first in the College, and a data analytics inter-disciplinary curriculum. He has authored and co-authored papers in key Journals such as ASCE Journals of Pipeline Systems, Water Resources Planning and management, Professional Issues in Engineering, Management in Engineering, Performance of Constructed Facilities, Construction Engineering and Management, the Journal of Applied Mathematics and computation, and other project management and professional journals.

His past experiences in industrial management and systems consulting include serving as Vice President for Oracle Corporation, where he founded and led the Northeast Consulting group and a national data warehousing practice for the Industrial Sector, designing and implementing enterprise solutions for Fortune 100 companies across a number of sectors. He led the development of a strategic sourcing enterprise management and decision support system. He undertook several capacity building assignments for large corporations and international agencies. He was the keynote Speaker for major events such as the Construction Roundtable of NJ in 2007 and the 2nd Annual Electronic Commerce Conference in 2000.

Dr. Karaa received his (Inter-disciplinary) PhD in Civil Engineering (Water Resource Systems), MS in Management (Finance and MIS) and MS in Civil Engineering Systems all from MIT; he was awarded an Engineer Diploma from Ecole Polytechnique, Paris. He was awarded the Excellence in Teaching Awards at the College of Engineering and the overall university levels. He was also the recipient of the Arthur T. Ippen Award, from MIT and the Boston Society of Civil Engineers President’s Appreciation Award.

Ph.D. ; Massachusetts Institute of Technology ; Civil Engineering ; 1984

M.S. ; Massachusetts Institute of Technology ; Management ; 1983

M.S. ; Massachusetts Institute of Technology ; Civil Engineering ; 1982

Ingenieur (Engineer) ; Ecole Polytechnique ; Ngenieur (Engineer) Engineering, Economics, Sciences ; 1980

2025 Nomination for 2024-2025 NJIT Institute Teaching Award for the category of Excellence in Graduate Advisement and Mentoring., NJIT Institute level

2024 Nomination for NCE Excellence in Teaching Award -2025, NJIT Newark College of Engineering

http://civil.njit.edu/people/karaa.php

CE 701B - MASTER'S THESIS

CE 790A - DOCT DISSERTATION & RES

CE 792 - PRE-DOCTORAL DISSERTATION

CE 725 - INDEPENDENT STUDY I

CE 491 - RESEARCH EXPER-CIVIL ENGR

CE 490 - CIVIL ENGR PROJECTS

CE 701C - MASTER'S THESIS

CE 700B - MASTERS PROJECT

CE 727 - INDEPENDENT RESEARCH III

CE 726 - INDEPENDENT STUDY II

CE 210 - CONSTRN MATRLS & PROCDRS

a) construction engineering and management with a focus on planning, scheduling and control, and the strategic management of construction project and organizational performance. b)critical infrastructure performance and risk analysis, program evaluation including life-cycle analysis, data acquisition, modeling and analysis for condition assessment and performance prediction, security management and optimal capital improvement planning.

a) the management of inter-dependent civil infrastructure integrating life-cycle and security hazards within a resiliency and long-term sustainability framework, with a focus on water, wastewater and energy supply chains.
b) location, condition assessment and asset management of underground infrastructure, using invasive and non-invasive technologies to supports different layers of utilities for expansion, rehabilitation or remediation.
c) modelling of facilities project life cycle risk and performance analysis.
d) development of optimal data acquisition strategies (sensor network location) for response management under simple and combined events scenarios of floods and failures of key infrastructure resources such as dams.

Ghadi Charbel, Rayan H Assaad, Tulio Rodriguez Tejada, Fadi A. Karaa. 2025. "Developing a Quantitative Modeling Framework for Risk Propagation Analysis: Application to Preconstruction Delays." ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, Part A: Civil Engineering , vol. 11 , no. 2 , pp. 04025011.

Ghadi Charbel, Rayan H Assaad, Tulio Rodriguez Tejada, Fadi A. Karaa. 2025. "Modeling the Interdependencies between the Risk Factors Contributing to Preconstruction Delays in Construction Projects." Journal of Construction Engineering and Management , vol. 151 , no. 4 , pp. 04025022.

Ghadi Charbel, Rayan Hassane Assaad, Tulio Rodriguez Tejada, Fadi A. Karaa. 2025. "Studying and Modeling the Causal Relationships between the Risk Factors Leading to Pre-Construction Delays in Construction Projects." ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management , no. 151(4):04025022, DOI: 10.1061/JCEMD4.COENG-15871, .

Ghiwa Assaf, Rayan Hassane Assaad, Fadi A. Karaa. 2024. "Identifying the Opportunities and Challenges of Project Bundling: Modeling and Discovering Key Patterns Using Unsupervised Machine Learning." ASCE Journal of Infrastructure Systems , vol. 30 .

Ghiwa Assaf, Rayan H. Assaad, Fadi A Karaa. 2024. "Identifying the Opportunities and Challenges of Project Bundling: Modeling and Discovering Key Patterns Using Unsupervised Machine Learning." ASCE Journal of Infrastructure Systems , no. https://doi.org/10.1061/JITSE4.ISENG-2299, January 2024. .

"Predicting Project Contingency in the Construction Industry Using Machine Learning Algorithms"
I3CE, July (3rd Quarter/Summer), 2024.

" Dynamic Agent-Based Optimization Model for Green Infrastructure Maintenance: Addressing Flooding Risks with a Focus on Permeable Pavements"
i3CE 2023 Conference Proceedings, published in the ASCE Library, January (1st Quarter/Winter), 2024.

"Development of an Empirical Approach for Identifying and Mitigating Risk from Combined Flood Events: A Case Study in the Meadowlands"
2015 Critical Infrastructure Symposium, April (2nd Quarter/Spring), 2015.

"Lebanon’s long-awaited 2019 budget: The need for a grand national vision"
Executive Magazine, June, 2019.