Dr. Rajab Abousnina joined the School of Engineering at MQ as a technical officer - Civil Engineering in February 2021. He completed his Master of Civil Engineering (MSc) and Master of Environmental Engineering (Research) from the University of Wollongong, Australia, and received his PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Southern Queensland (USQ), Australia. He was the recipient of a highly competitive Endeavour postdoctoral fellowship in 2018 where he spent 6 months in a research program at Sultan Qaboos University – Oman. In early 2019, he started working as a research fellow in two different projects at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Most recently Rajab worked as a research technical officer at USQ for 1.5 years on the development of a railway sleeper project funded by CRC-P ($3 Million). In addition to that, he supervised research projects for UG, MSc, and PhD students. He also worked as a course team member for different civil engineering courses. He has hands-on experience in using different facilities related to materials and structures including SEM, DSC, DIC, DMA, and large scales facilities such as 3-point, 4-point, and 5-point bending and axial compression using 10kN, 100 kN, 400 kN, and 2000 kN capacity equipment, dynamic fatigue test using 500 kN MTS. His combined knowledge in research, teaching, and technical aspects provided him a set of special skills in the area of Civil Engineering.

Total grants received: AU $79.441k

• Abousnina R., Alajarmeh O, Allan Manalo, Ferdous W., Yanru Wang., and Pully Bury. “New management and implementation of the industrial FRP composite waste dust” Capacity Building Grant, University of Southern Queensland, 2021-2022, AU$9.941k.
• Abousnina R. (CI) "Physical and mechanical properties of concrete with heavy crude oil contaminated sand ", Endeavour Research Fellowship, Dept. of Education and Training, Australian Government, 2018: AU $24.5k.
• Abousnina R., Ferdous W., Mehrinejad M., and Alajarmeh O. “Value-adding and reusing waste tyres for laminated rubber structures” Capacity Building Grant, University of Southern Queensland, 2020-2021, AU$15k.
• Abousnina R., Bundschuh J., and Les Bowtell. “Forward osmosis system” University of Southern Queensland, 2016, AU$30k.

Postdoctoral Research

• University of Waikato, Hamilton (2019), New Zealand
• Sultan Qaboos University (2018), Oman
• University of Southern Queensland (2016-2018) Australia

Research Interests

• Waste materials;
• Geopolymer concrete;
• Concrete technology;
• Composite;
• Wastewater treatment – membrane technologies

Technical Reviewers

• ACI Structural and Materials Journals (Reviewer)
• Elsevier Journal of Engineering Geology (Reviewer)
• Elsevier Journal of Construction and Building Materials (Reviewer)
• Applied Sciences Journal (Reviewer)

Academic Awards

• Best publication paper award 2019 – USQ, Australia
• Endeavour postdoctoral fellowship award 2018 – Australia

USQ Research affiliations

• School of Engineering, Macquarie University