Zachary Grasley

Zachary Grasley is currently the Department Head of the Zachry Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M University. Grasley guides the largest such department in the US with about 1,300 students and a faculty research program developing new fundamental understanding, tools, designs, materials, models, processes, and guidelines to help move civil & environmental engineering into the future.

Grasley was born in Merrill, Michigan. During his senior year in high school, he built a custom house that was featured on CBS This Morning. He formed a construction company shortly after his high school graduation and still maintains a Michigan Residential Builders License. His interest in engineering piqued, Grasley attended Michigan Technological University where he graduated Summa Cum Laude with a BS in Civil Engineering in 2001. He went on to complete an MS and PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).   

After defending his dissertation, Grasley started as an Assistant Professor at Texas A&M University where he was presented with several awards, including the NSF CAREER Award, the Zachry Teaching Award, and the TEES Select Young Faculty Award. Grasley joined Virginia Tech in the fall of 2012 as an Associate Professor, and was awarded the 2013 Walter P. Moore, Jr., Faculty Achievement Award from the American Concrete Institute. Grasley rejoined Texas A&M in August 2014 and was subsequently recognized as Fellow of the American Concrete Institute, Fellow of the American Ceramic Society, Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and awarded the ACI Young Member Award for Professional Achievement. Grasley is now a Presidential Impact Fellow at Texas A&M University – a lifelong title bestowed by the university president. 

Since starting as a faculty member in 2006, Grasley has published over 75 peer-reviewed journal articles and has given over 40 invited or keynote seminars. He has had three journal articles recognized as “Outstanding Paper” for the journal Materials & Structures and another as a “Best Paper” by the Journal of the American Ceramic Society. Grasley has been PI or co-PI on research grants totaling over $10 million and was previously cited as among the top three percent of civil engineering professors by Academic Analytics in terms of research productivity. 

From the CEGE Academy Induction Fall 2023