Associate Professor Maria Rashidi
Biography
Maria Rashidi is an Associate Professor at Urban Transformation Research Centre (UTRC) and Centre for Infrastructure Engineering (CIE) at the School of Engineering Design and Built Environment (EDBE). She has been involved in several design, construction and asset management projects for over 15 years. She received her Master of Civil Engineering and her PhD from University of Wollongong. Her expertise is in Civil Engineering with an emphasis on asset management, and her research capabilities include health monitoring of bridges using drones, sensor networking, laser scanning, digital twinning and energy harvesting. She has also carried out extensive research on life cycle management of bridges which led to development of a Decision Support System(DSS) for bridge remediation.
She is the author or co-author of over 100 scholarly publications, on a wide range of topics in the areas of structural health monitoring, bridge engineering, construction management, energy efficiency and digital twinning including keynote addresses and invited papers.
She has been the finalist of research impact competition in 2016 and 2023, representing the School of Engineering Design and Built Environment (SoEDBE). She obtained the school award of researcher of the year through industry partnership in 2021, the award for mid-career researcher of the year in 2022 and the award of researcher of the year through national and international collaborations in 2023. She has also received the esteemed Western Ventures Impact Prize at Western Sydney University's Research Impact Competition in 2023.
Associate Professor Maria Rashidi is currently the deputy director of Urban Transformation Research Centre (UTRC) and team leader of Structural Engineering and Health Monitoring (SAHM) team at the Centre for Infrastructure Engineering and has been the chief investigator and project manager of several research and consulting projects.
Areas of Research/Teaching Expertise
Associate Professor Maria Rashidi has extensive experience in Structural/Infrastructure Engineering, Infrastructure Planning and Asset Management, Digital Twinning and Utilisation of Emerging Technologies for Health Monitoring of Infrastructure Assets.
Her research interests include:
- Digital twinning of civil infrastructure assets
- Bridge management systems
- Infrastructure asset management
- Structural assessment and health monitoring
- Utilisation of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) and Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) for digitalisation of civil infrastructure assets
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) for damage detection and health monitoring of civil infrastructure
- Application of Fibre Reinforced Polymer (FRP) for strengthening of concrete structures
- Development of Decision Support Systems (DSS) for infrastructure planning
- Development of effective sustainable transportation strategies
- Health monitoring of modular buildings
- Self-sensing Concrete
- Sustainable infrastructure
- Application of drones for early detection of bushfire
- Energy-efficient housing
- Energy harvesting using PEHs and TENGs
Current Grants and Projects
ARC Industry Transformation Research Hub for Resilient and Intelligent Infrastructure Systems (RIIS) in Urban, Resources and Energy Sectors (ARC)
Utilisation of Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) Systems and Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Bridge Health Monitoring (TfNSW)
Cutting-Edge Numerical Techniques for Assessing the Structural Integrity of Bridges (Horsham Rural City Council)
Railway maintenance review and framework planning (ACRI)
Timber Truss Bridge Conservation Strategy (TfNSW)
Digital twin of reinforced concrete infrastructure for intelligent asset management (SmartCrete CRC)
Automation of Compliance Checking at Using Artificial Intelligence (Comnia Pty Ltd)
Development of high-performance volumetric modular system with energy harvesting (Infratech Pty Ltd)
Thermal Comfort and Energy Efficiency Analysis of Residential Buildings (CSIRO)
Work Health and Safety of Non-Destructive Digging and Asbestos Contaminated Soils (SafeWork NSW)
Developing a low-cost accurate bridge weigh in motion system for estimation of gross and axle vehicle weights (DATA61)
An integrated aerial and terrestrial approach for digitisation and monitoring of bridges (TfNSW)
Selected Publications
Mousavi, V., Rashidi, M., Mohammadi, M. and Samali, B. (2024), 'Evolution of digital twin frameworks in bridge management : review and future directions', Remote Sensing, vol 16, no 11.
Rashidi, M., Mohammadi, M., Kivi, S., Abdolvand, M., Truong-Hong, L. and Samali, B. (2020), 'A decade of modern bridge monitoring using terrestrial laser scanning : review and future directions', Remote Sensing, vol 12, no 22 .
Rashidi, M., Noori Hoshyar, A., Smith, L., Samali, B. and Siddique, R. (2020), “A comprehensive taxonomy for structure and material deficiencies, preventions and remedies of timber bridges”, Journal of Building Engineering.
Rashidi, M., Zhang, C., Ghodrat, M., Kempton, S., Samali, B., Akbarnezhad, A. and Zhu, L. (2018), “Bridge abutment movement and approach settlement: a case study and scenario analysis”, International Journal of Structural Stability and Dynamics, vol 18.
Rashidi, M., Ghodrat, M., Samali, B., Kendall, B. and Zhang, C. (2017), “Remedial modelling of steel bridges through application of analytical hierarchy process (AHP)”, Applied Sciences, Vol 7, No 2.
Rashidi, M., Samali, B. and Sharafi, P. (2016), “A new model for bridge management, Part A: condition assessment and priority ranking of bridges”, Australian Journal of Civil Engineering, Vol 14, No 1, pp 35 - 45.
Rashidi, M., Samali, B. and Sharafi, P. (2016), “A new model for bridge management, Part B: decision support system for remediation planning”, Australian Journal of Civil Engineering, Vol 14, No 1, pp 46 - 53.
Rashidi, M., Ghodrat, M., Samali, B. and Mohammadi, M. (2018), “Decision support systems, Management of Information Systems”, IntechOpen, ISBN: 9781789841978.
Mohammadi, M., Rashidi, M., Mousavi, V., Yu, Y. and Samali, B. (2022), 'Application of TLS method in digitization of bridge infrastructures : a path to BrIM development', Remote Sensing, vol 14, no 5 .
Yu, Y., Rashidi, M., Samali, B., Mohammadi, M, Nguyen. TN, Zhou. X (2022) Crack detection of concrete structures using deep convolutional neural networks optimized by enhanced chicken swarm algorithm, Structural Health Monitoring.
Yu, Y., Rashidi, M., Samali, B., Yousefi, A. and Wang, W. (2021), 'Multi-image-feature-based hierarchical concrete crack identification framework using optimized SVM multi-classifiers and D-S fusion algorithm for bridge structures', Remote Sensing, vol 13, no 2 .
Mohammadi, M., Rashidi, M., Mousavi, V., Karami, A., Yu, Y. and Samali, B. (2021), 'Quality evaluation of digital twins generated based on UAV photogrammetry and TLS : bridge case study', Remote Sensing, vol 13, no 17 .
Sorooshnia, E., Rashidi, M., Rahnamayiezekavat, P., Rezaei, F. and Samali, B. (2021), Optimum external shading system for counterbalancing glare probability and daylight illuminance in Sydney's residential buildings', Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, ISSN: 0969-9988
