Construction and Materials Endowed Chair Announced
July 16, 2003
Thomas D. White is the first holder of the Construction and Materials Chair in Civil Engineering at Mississippi State.
He also now directs the university’s Construction and Materials Research Center, which was created in 1998 as part of an effort to support and advance the state’s highway construction industry.
White continues as head of the civil engineering department in the Bagley College of Engineering, a position he assumed in 1999 upon returning to his alma mater. A Tallulah, La., native, he holds two degrees from MSU: a bachelor’s in civil engineering in 1964 and a master’s in engineering mechanics in 1971. His doctorate in geotechnical engineering was completed at Purdue University in 1981.
The endowed chair is made possible through contributions from the Mississippi Asphalt Pavement, Mississippi Concrete Industry and Mississippi Road Builders associations, and their collective member organizations.
With teaching and research facilities housed in the civil engineering department, the privately funded Construction and Materials Research Center is the collective result of efforts led by the Mississippi Department of Transportation and numerous private individuals. The center’s goals include the development of new technology-based solutions for material and construction problems unique to Mississippi and the improvement of existing construction practices.
White began his career in 1965 as a design engineer for Varco Steel in Pine Bluff, Ark., and then worked as a researcher with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Waterways Experiment Station in Vicksburg. He later returned to Purdue, where he spent 15 years as a faculty member and researcher at the Indiana land-grant university.
His professional expertise and research interests include construction materials; pavement design; evaluation, maintenance and management; accelerated pavement testing; and finite element analysis of pavements. His scientific investigations have been published widely.