College Enters New Era as Thompson and Hassan Assume Leadership Roles
June 20, 2023
BATON ROUGE, LA – The LSU College of Engineering enters the summer with new leadership at the helm as LSU Petroleum Engineering Professor and Chair Karsten Thompson has been named interim dean of the college and LSU Construction Management Professor Marwa Hassan is now associate dean of academic affairs.
Thompson replaces Judy Wornat, who served as dean of the college for eight years.
She returns to the Cain Department of Chemical Engineering as a member of faculty.
Hassan replaces Craig Harvey, who served in the associate dean role for seven years
and will become dean of the Allen E. Paulson College of Engineering and Computing
at Georgia Southern University effective July 1.
Thompson joined LSU in 1996 as an assistant professor of chemical engineering. He was later promoted to associate and full professor in chemical engineering and served in a number of administrative roles, particularly supporting the undergraduate program. In 2011, he was appointed chair of the Craft & Hawkins Department of Petroleum Engineering, where he remained until this recent appointment as interim dean of the college. During this period, he led the department through a turbulent time in the oil and gas industry and into the beginnings of the energy transition.
His expertise is in the areas of flow and reaction in porous materials, with a particular focus on image-based modeling. He has led sponsored research projects for a variety of companies, including Kimberly-Clark, Millipore, BP, ExxonMobil, Schlumberger, and Shell. In 2023, he began a two-year term as president of the International Society for Porous Media (or InterPore).
“I’m honored for the opportunity to lead the college for this period and excited to work with our outstanding faculty and staff and the 5,000-plus students that will join us or continue studies this fall,” Thompson said. “In the coming year, we anticipate continued growth on multiple fronts, with a particular focus on areas of excellence that are aligned with President [William Tate IV’s] Scholarship First Agenda and which can directly impact Louisiana and beyond. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge our past two deans, whom I worked closely with as department chair and who were both instrumental in putting us in such a strong position today.”
Hassan is the founder and director of the regional university transportation center Tran-SET, as well as the CETF Distinguished Professor and Jacobs Professor of Excellence in the College of Engineering. She served on LSU's Faculty Senate Executive Committee (FSEC) from 2018-2022 and as secretary of the FSEC in 2021-2022. She also served as the Bert S. Turner Department of Construction Management graduate coordinator for seven years from 2012-2018. Her area of expertise is evaluation and characterization of sustainable infrastructure materials and Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA).
She has more than 20 years of industrial and academic experience in material science
and characterization, LCA, and sustainable engineering. She has also established a
unique, multi-disciplinary research and education program at LSU for undergraduate
and graduate students focused on infrastructure sustainability and the use of advanced
materials, including nanomaterials in construction applications. She has attracted
research funding exceeding $35 million and has published 109 refereed journal publications
and 155 refereed conference proceedings with her students.
Hassan served as ASCE's Construction Research Congress (CRC) president in 2017-2018 and is currently the award committee chair within the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC) executive committee. She will also be elected vice president of CUTC this week in Miami. She is a member of many Transportation Research Board (TRB) committees, including AFH10, AFH30, and AFH50. She is also a member of AFD001: Pavement Sustainability subcommittee. In addition, Hassan is a member of the Construction Industry Institute (CII) academic committee and a friend of the Sustainable Pavement Technical Work Group (SPTWG). She led the design and construction of the first photocatalytic pavement in the United States.
“The associate dean role is a service role,” Hassan said. “An effective associate dean needs to strategically plan the college’s goals and objectives and devise appropriate action plans to accomplish them, and that is what I plan to work on with Dean Thompson. I also believe that academia, industry, and government collaborations are the foundation on which strong programs grow.
“Therefore, I will work on creating an environment in the college where the three entities work together to strive towards success. I will also focus on building partnerships that result in creating opportunities for growth and collaboration.”
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Contact: Joshua Duplechain
Director of Communications
225-578-5706
josh@lsu.edu