Ibrahim S Odeh

Dr. Ibrahim Odeh is the Founding Director of the Global Leaders in Construction Management (GLCM) program and the Chair of the Engineering and Construction Management Program at the Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at Columbia University. He is a unique combination of a strategist, academic, innovator, and entrepreneur. His work seamlessly merges the worlds of industry and academia, spans the global construction market, and provides leading construction firms with unique market insights; growth strategies; and advice on digital transformation and technological trends that are reshaping the construction and engineering industry. Companies that Odeh collaborated or worked with from an advisory perspective, consulting role, or research collaboration effort are: World Economic Forum, Royal Commission of AlUla, ExxonMobil, Turner Construction, Nesma & Partners, Skanska, Parsons Corporation, The Vertex Companies, Dentons, AECOM, AI Engineers, WGI Engineering, Plaza Construction and many others. Odeh worked as an advisory committee member at the World Economic Forum on the “Future of Construction” project. In 2017, he served for two years as an advisory board member at Financial Times - Future of Construction Summit on a similar initiative. He sits at several advisory boards and committees such as Tough Leaf, AI Engineers, EnTech Engineering, Trunk Tools, Infraclear, Taiyo, Black Buffalo, and GrydSense. In 2021 Odeh was also appointed as an advisory board member at the GI Hub; a G20 initiative that is now part of the World Bank's Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF), focuses on connecting the global infrastructure community and sharing insights to facilitate delivery of global economic, social and environmental outcomes through increased and improved infrastructure.

Odeh was also the first instructor to introduce in Fall 2016 the first Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) to educate global learners in the area of Construction Management under the Coursera platform. Number of learners registered for Odeh’s courses to-date reached over half a million from 190 countries with more than a million global followers! His courses ranked third globally under the business category on Coursera for several years. Odeh also is a regular active speaker delivered several keynote presentations in different countries globally in the area of digital transformation and the future of the construction industry. Odeh won several prestigious awards and recognitions such as the 2023 McGraw Hill Pathfinder Award, an award recognizes educators for innovative and inventive methods who are breaking new ground in their approach to education in global scale, and the Columbia University prestigious Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching; top honour presented to only five recipients from nearly 1,000 nominations. He was also named Top 20 Under 40 by Engineering News Records and Top 40 Under 40 by Consulting-Specifying Engineer. Odeh received his PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as well as he holds an MBA degree.

Projects Highlight:

• Engineering and Construction Transformation Map (World Economic Forum)
• City Adaptability Index
• Selected Publications