Kevin Mackie Named Chair of Civil Engineering Department

After serving as interim chair of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering (CECE) for more than a year, Professor Kevin Mackie will officially step into the role on Aug. 8. His appointment as chair comes after a rigorous selection process that included faculty, staff and other stakeholders.

“I’m honored for the support of the department faculty and the college and the trust they have placed in me to take on this responsibility and lead us forward,” Mackie says. “I am excited about the prospect of providing leadership through the department’s challenges and successes over the coming years, and I believe we have a lot of potential to increase our department stature nationally and internationally. I am fortunate and grateful to inherit a strong and cohesive department of productive and successful faculty that is a testament to both the efforts of my predecessor, Professor Mohamed Abdel-Aty, and the strengths of the people we have at UCF.”

The selection committee chose Mackie based on his proactive approach as interim chair, his vision for the department and the positive changes he’s already implemented. Over the past year, he’s taken steps to improve office morale and the department culture, making CECE a more welcoming place for faculty, staff and students. He’s helped the department navigate the impact of Workday and SET, implemented a faculty performance-based workload policy, updated the department website and ensured it’s digitally accessible, and created newly combined spaces to increase the capacity for new graduate students.

Over the next five years, Mackie plans to transform the education, research and partnership missions of the department by increasing the quality and size of the CECE graduate programs, pursuing industry partnerships to support student recruitment and diversifying the department’s Senior Design course to focus on different industry sectors.

Mackie joined the University of Central Florida in 2006 as an assistant professor. Prior to becoming chair, he served as an associate chair of the CECE department for 10 years, led the successful reaccreditation of all three of the department’s undergraduate programs and established the bachelor’s to master’s accelerated program.

In 2004 and 2000, respectively, Mackie earned his doctoral and master’s degrees in civil engineering with a structural engineering emphasis from the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on the nonlinear modeling of soil-structure systems, the performance-based assessment of buildings and bridges under extreme loads, and the repair and retrofit of structures using advanced materials and composites. With UCF students and faculty, he has published close to 180 journal papers, technical reports and conference proceedings, and has been cited more than 7,000 times. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Structural Engineering Institute, and is a licensed professional engineer in the State of Florida.