Sara Wadia-Fascetti

About

Sara Wadia-Fascetti is the Vice Provost for the PhD Network and a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northeastern University.  As Vice Provost, she provides university-level leadership for PhD education across Northeastern’s global university system. As the academic interface responsible for PhD programs, she works with the deans to deliver quality and distinctive student-centric PhD education across all disciplinary and interdisciplinary PhD programs. She partners with university leaders to create and deliver initiatives that bring distinction to PhD education including global partnerships, cross-cutting interdisciplinary education, and burgeoning Experiential PhD programs.

Prior to joining the Office of the Provost in 2017 Sara served as the College of Engineering Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, Special Assistant to the Provost for Faculty Development, and the founding Director of Northeastern ADVANCE. These leadership roles, all at Northeastern, resulted in the establishment of longstanding institutional initiatives that promote student experience, diversity, faculty development, experiential learning, graduate education, and research.

Sara’s research is at the intersection of nondestructive sensing technologies and diagnostics of civil infrastructure structural systems. She has led projects resulting in nearly $30M in external resources that support Northeastern research, education, and institutional initiatives.  She led the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grant resulting in the Northeastern ADVANCE Office for Faculty Development; co-led the VOTERS Civil Infrastructure Assessment Center funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that resulted in the StreetScan start-up company; led the establishment of the NSF-funded Interdisciplinary Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) site for Intelligent Diagnostics for Aging Civil Infrastructure; and served on the Executive Committee for the NSF-funded Engineering Research Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems (CenSSIS).

Sara received her MS and PhD degrees in Structural Engineering from Stanford University and a BS in Civil Engineering with a double major in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University. She has been recognized for her teaching, research, and administrative leadership. She is the recipient of the National Science Foundation Career Development Award, the American Society of Engineering Education Minorities in Education Award, and the American Society of Engineering Education Sharon Keillor Woman in Engineering Education Award.  In 2003, she was recognized at the White House with a 2002 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring.  She has served as a member of the Rochester Institute of Technology ADVANCE Institutional Transformation External Advisory Board and several advisory councils at Carnegie Mellon University. She is founding Co-Chair of the board level Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee for the Structural Engineers Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers and is a member of the Board of Trustees for Geohazards International, a global nonprofit committed to taking actions before disasters.

Selected Publications

• D. Vine, S. Shahini Shamsabadi, Y. Zhao, R. Birken, M. Wang, S. Wadia, City-Wide Application of the Affordable and Rapid StreetScan Pavement Management System, ASCE Journal of Infrastructure Systems, 2017
• A. Ganguli, C.M. Rappaport, D. Abramo, S. Wadia-Fascetti, Synthetic Aperture Imaging for Flaw Detection in a Concrete Medium, NDT & E International, 45(1), 2012, 79-90
• K. Belli, S. Wadia-Fascetti, C. Rappaport, Integrated Sensor and Media Modeling Environment Developed and Applied to Ground-Penetrating Radar Investigation of Bridge Decks, Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, 25(1), 2011, 10-20
• K. Belli, C. Rappaport, S. Wadia-Fascetti, A Time Domain Equivalent Source Model of an Impulse GPR Antenna Based on Measured Radiation Field, Research in Nondestructive Evaluation, 22(4), 2011, 197-207

Faculty

Sep 15, 2022

In Mexico City, Public Transit Takes to the Air

Vice Provost of the PhD Network & CEE Professor Sara Wadia-Fascetti was featured in the Northeastern Experience magazine article “In Mexico City, public transit takes to the air.”

Faculty

Aug 30, 2022

Expanding the Bridge to Doctorate STARS Program

Vice Provost of the PhD Network & CEE Professor Sara Wadia-Fascetti, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs & MIE Professor Jacqueline Isaacs, CEE Affiliated Faculty Randall Hughes, and Associate Dean, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Richard Harris were awarded a $1M NSF grant to expand the Northeastern LSAMP BD STARS Fellowship Pathway.

Mar 12, 2020

Taking Graduate Experience-Powered Learning to the Next Level

Northeastern has been building its worldwide network of co-op partners for more than a century and in 2020 was ranked No. 1 in the nation for co-ops/internships by U.S. News and World Report. Graduate students at Northeastern’s College of Engineering are gaining real-world experiences on co-op in industry and research, locally and globally, and also through our innovative Experiential PhD program.

Faculty

Mar 14, 2018

Northeastern to Host LSAMP’s Bridge to the Doctorate Program under $1M NSF Grant

Provost and MIE Professor James Bean (PI) and co-PI Professors Barbara Guthrie (Bouvé), Carla Mattos (COS), Hameed Metghalchi (MIE), and Benjamin Hescott (CCIS), along with collaborators Richard Harris, COE Assistant Dean and Director of the Northeastern University Program in Multicultural Engineering, and Sara Wadia-Fascetti, Vice Provost of the PhD Network and CEE Professor, were awarded a $1M NSF grant for the “Strategic Advancement of Rising Scholars (STARS) Nominated by the Northeast Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (NE-LSAMP).”

Faculty

Jan 31, 2017

Addressing the Nation’s Pressing Transportation Challenges

Northeastern University is one of 18 “forward thinking and influential institutions” selected by the USDOT to focus on exploring the challenges facing land and transit systems in America’s Northeast.

Jul 14, 2016

VOTERS Awarded Patent

VOTERS professors Ming Wang (CEE), Sara Wadia-Fascetti (CEE), & Carey Rappaport (ECE) were awarded a patent for “Roaming mobile sensor platform for collecting geo-referenced data and creating thematic maps”. Abstract Source: USPTO A roaming sensor system collects data on the condition of roads and bridge decks and identifies and maps defects, including cracks, potholes, debonding, […]

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