Professor Fam is the Donald and Sarah Munro Chair in Engineering and Applied Science and the Associate Dean (Research and Graduate Studies) in the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science. He holds a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering from Alexandria University and an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering (structures) from the University of Manitoba. From 2000 to 2002, he was a Post-doctoral Fellow and Instructor at North Carolina State University (NCSU), Raleigh, NC. Dr. Fam joined the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science in the Department of Civil Engineering at Queen`s University as an Assistant Professor in 2002, and was promoted to Full Professor in 2009. He held the position of a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Innovative and Retrofitted Structures (2003-2013). Dr. Fam has served as the Chair of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Civil Engineering and currently serves as a Queen's Senator. In 2009, he was a Visiting Professor at Monash University, Australia and from 2014 to the present he holds the Jinshan Visiting Scholar position at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, China.
An active researcher in the areas of structural engineering using fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) reinforcements and bio-based composites in new construction and retrofitting aging bridges and buildings, Dr. Fam has over 130 refereed journal papers, 115 refereed conference papers, 5 books and book-chapters, and 40 technical reports. He is a fellow of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering and the International Institute for FRP in Construction (IIFC). He is also the Vice President and Treasurer of the IIFC. In 2015, he became a project leader of a $3.5M CFI-IOF project to develop and build the first Moving Load Simulator for bridges in Canada, at Queen's. He also chaired the Academic Progress Committee of an NSERC-CREATE network on Structural Engineering in Remote Regions (SERA) at Queen's. Dr. Fam is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering (CJCE) and an Associate Editor/Member of Editorial Board of several journals, including the ASCE Journal of Composites for Construction, the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI) Journal and the CJCE. He has been invited to deliver keynote presentations in international and national conferences, including conferences in Scotland, Sydney (Australia), and Hong Kong.
Dr. Fam is the recipient of the Ontario Early Researcher Award, Queen's Chancellor's Research Award, the T. Y. Lin best paper award of ASCE J. of Structural Engineering, NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement (DAS) and Civil Engineering Teaching Award. He has trained 14 doctoral and 30 master's students, 10 post-doctoral fellows and visiting scholars, and 24 undergraduate research students.