Courtesy the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

Theodore P. Zoli, PE, an HNTB vice president, serves HNTB’s national bridge chief engineer and is in charge of technical aspects of the bridge practice firmwide. During his 21 years with HNTB, Zoli has led the design of many bridge projects including the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge in Boston, the Sixth Street Viaduct in Milwaukee, the Blennerhassett Island Bridge between West Virginia and Ohio, the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge between Nebraska and Iowa and the Lake Champlain Bridge between New York and Vermont.

Shortly after the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001, Zoli started HNTB’s infrastructure security practice and has developed innovative protective measures for some of our nation’s largest and most important bridges. He has served as an instructor at the FHWA sponsored Bridge and Tunnel Terrorist Vulnerability Workshop in conjunction with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Zoli has authored a number of technical papers on various aspects of bridge design with a focus on enhancing bridge safety.  He serves on the Post-Tensioning Institute stay cable committee, the project engineering panel for NCHRP12-49 Development of Seismic Provisions for AASHTO LRFD, and on the oversight panel for NCHRP 12-72 Blast/Impact Resistant Highway Bridges and NCHRP 12-85 Fire Vulnerability of Highway Bridges.

He is an adjunct professor of graduate studies in civil engineering at Columbia University, where he is engaged in research on the effects of fire on bridges, as well as the design of long-span bridges to resist progressive collapse. He is also a visiting lecturer at Princeton University’s Department of Civil Engineering, where he teaches a course on the design of long-span bridges. He is a member of the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering.

In 2009, Zoli was selected as a MacArthur Fellow. With this grant, he is currently pursuing three diverse design activities, a synthetic rope bridge ideal for rural areas, lightweight hypar roofs, an alternative to tents as part of disaster relief activities, and an alternative temporary bridge to extend the span range of panelized bridge systems.

He received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Princeton University and a master’s degree in civil engineering from the California Institute of Technology.