After graduating from the American University of Beirut in Civil Engineering in 1992, Dr. Semaan joined the Associated Consulting Engineers (ACE), one of the leading engineering consulting firms in Lebanon and the Middle East, as a structural engineer. During 1993 and 1994, he moved with them to Athens, Greece in order to work on a megaproject. In 1997, he was seconded to Camp Dresser and McKee, Massachusetts, USA, as a leading structural engineer on another megaproject. As a reward to his devotion and excellence in structural engineering, Dr. Semaan became a shareholder in ACE. He held a senior structural engineer position until his resignation in 2002.


In 2002, he moved permanently to Montreal, Canada, where he became a Professional Engineer in Quebec province. There, He joined HATCH, a leading heavy industry engineering firm, as a senior structural engineer. He worked in HATCH until he returned to Lebanon in 2009. He was awarded the “Project Management Institute” (PMI) Project of the year 2008.


Dr. Semaan earned more than 17 years of professional international experience in the analysis and design of structures, particularly in zones with great seismic activity. He has skills in structural design and preparation of plans and specifications for various types of structures. His experience comprises residential buildings, industrial plants, commercial buildings, hospitals, water treatment plants and sewer lines with different types of reservoirs (manholes, pumping stations, valve chambers, etc.), road bridges (including retaining walls, culverts and hydraulic structures) as well as in port structures. He acquired knowledge of several building and bridges codes. He worked with French codes (BAEL, AFPS92), SETRA standards, European standards such as EURO and British Code BS 8007 for sanitary structures, American codes (specifically ACI-318 for buildings, ACI-350 for sanitary structures, AASHTO 98, UBC 97 and PCA) and the Canadian codes CSA: CPCI 96, A23.3-94, and CSA-S16.1-M94.


In Montreal, he pursued a Master’s degree in ‘Construction and Infrastructure Management, and graduated in 2007. His MA. SC. research consisted of developing a condition assessment diagnostic model for subway stations. And he developed an automated “Subway Station Diagnosis Index APPlication” tool (SSDI-APP).

He also pursued a Ph.D. in the same field and graduated in 2011. His doctoral research work consisted of developing deterioration models and methodologies for different infrastructure, and developing a structural performance model for the subway network. He developed the automated “SUbway PERformance” (SUPER) Model software. He was awarded the membership of the Golden Key International Honor Society in 2010, in recognition of outstanding scholastic achievement and excellence.

He joined the University of Balamand on a part-time basis in 2009, then, as an assistant professor in 2011. In 2011, he received the certificate of the “Most Worldwide Referenced Published Paper in 2011” during the Montreal International Engineering Forum. In 2014, he received the certificate of “Outstanding and Excellent Research Paper” from the International Association for Engineering and Management Education (IAEME).

Dr. Semaan was promoted to the rank of associate professor in 2017. Between 2016 and 2018, he served as the chairman of the engineering management department. Also, in the spring of 2019, he was appointed a consultant representative of the University of Balamand for the Ministry of Public Works on the “Chekka Retaining Structures Failure”.

Since joining the University of Balamand, Dr. Semaan supervised three MS dissertations, and a 38 MS projects. He prepared a book on infrastructure asset management, and this book was published in LAP Lambert publishing company in Germany in 2015. Until date, he published 12 refereed journal articles, 2 refereed conference articles, 6 articles in conference proceedings. He also participated in 13 national and international conferences.

Honors & Awards
Project Management Institute PMI Project of year 2008.
Golden Key International Honor Society Member, 2009.
Certificate of the “Most Worldwide Referenced Published Paper in 2011”, Montreal Internationa Engineering Forum, 2012.
Certificate of “Outstanding and Excellent Research Paper” from the International Association for Engineering and Management Education (IAEME) in 2014.