DYWIDAG Technical Director Dr. Shahid Islam Wins Prestigious ASBI Leadership Award

Congratulations to Dr. Shahid Islam, Technical Director-PT BU, for his recent win of the 2020 American Segmental Bridge Institute’s Leadership Award. The award is presented to engineering thought leaders for their outstanding career contributions for the advancement of the concrete segmental bridge industry. Dr. Islam is the first DYWIDAG employee to win an ASBI Leadership award since 2002. 

He is no stranger to educating fellow engineers, having spent more than six years in various faculty roles at several engineering universities before receiving his Ph.D. in Structural Engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Islam began his career at DYWIDAG as a corporate engineer in 2001. Over the last 20 years, he has left his mark on the construction industry through many notable projects, including New York City’s Freedom Tower. Always proud of the work he and the DYWIDAG teams have accomplished, Dr. Islam had trouble narrowing the list of his favorite builds, “I would say the Penobscot Narrows Bridge in Maine, the Freedom Tower in New York City and the Susquehanna River Bridge are the ones that stand out.” Other noteworthy DYWIDAG projects that he has worked on include the Provencher Pedestrian Cable Stay Bridge (Canada), the Victory Bridge (New Jersey), the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art (California), and the Sam Houston Ship Channel (Texas).

When ASBI board member and DYWIDAG President, Global Post-Tensioning Unit, Christian Römschied, was asked about Dr. Islam’s leadership, he noted, “Shahid is an absolute team player. He is often viewed as the ‘go-to’ person because he can get the right people to coordinate across departments. He is extremely thorough, experienced, and always reliable.” As his colleague for many years, Römschied also emphasized the prestige of Dr. Islam winning the ASBI Leadership Award, “There are a lot of accomplished engineers on the ballot for this award. Shahid’s win showcases his outstanding reputation as a thought leader in our industry.”

Dr. Islam is continually active with ASBI by presenting at seminars and having authored content for their construction best practices handbook. “Receiving this award means a great deal to me, as my industry peers nominated me. I’m also proud to win this award on behalf of all us here at DYWIDAG,” Dr. Islam humbly shared when remarking on what winning the award means to him. Römschied concurred, “Shahid’s winning of this award is important to our company. It helps to re-establish DYWIDAG’s dominant presence in the market.”

Even with this career-defining award in hand, Dr. Islam is not slowing down any time soon. He is currently working on the LAX Automated People Mover Project in California while also looking ahead to the future of the construction industry. “I’m most excited about new technologies in the post-tensioning industry, especially in the segmented bridge space and look forward to both the opportunities and challenges these present.”