Dan Abrams served as a Fulbright Specialist at Nirma University in Ahmedabad, which is in Gujarat, India for a period of three weeks commencing in January 2019.   While in residence, he presented a short course on Experimental Techniques in Earthquake Engineering.  He also had ample time to interact with faculty, students and the university administration, to consult with faculty on development of their new structural engineering laboratory, and to visit the new IIT campus in nearby Gandhinagar.

After over three decades on the structures faculty at the University of Illinois, Abrams retired at the end of 2017.  He is a world-renowned expert in masonry structures and earthquake engineering, he applied his expertise through service on numerous code committees and he was the founding director of the Mid-America Earthquake Center.  Over the course of his career, he made major contributions through his research, teaching and service, and his awards and honors include: Donald Biggar Willet Professorship in Engineering; Fellow of The Masonry Society (TMS), American Concrete Institute and Structural Engineering Institute; Scalzi Research Award and President’s Award from TMS.  He is a licensed professional engineer, having worked as a practicing structural engineer in Chicago and San Francisco, and as a professor, he undertook consulting assignments with industry.