NEW YORK (April 24, 2026) – Ted Zoli, PE, HNTB’s national chief bridge engineer, has received the American Institute of Steel Construction’s Lifetime Achievement Award, recognizing his career-long contributions to advancing bridge engineering, connecting communities and delivering lasting value to the traveling public.
The AISC Lifetime Achievement Award honors individuals whose careers demonstrate exceptional technical achievement, leadership and service to the bridge engineering profession. This honor highlights Zoli’s long career designing innovative steel bridges for every transportation mode. His ability to adapt new design strategies that take advantage of the latest American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials guide specifications on structurally and internally redundant members (SRMs and IRMs) is particularly noteworthy.
HNTB’s Ted Zoli
Throughout his career, Zoli has helped translate emerging research and evolving standards into practical solutions for clients, with a goal of enhanced safety, resiliency and constructability in bridge designs. At HNTB, he partners with multidisciplinary project teams and clients, guiding complex projects and addressing technical challenges while delivering long-term value for the communities they serve.
With more than 35 years of experience, Zoli has led the design and delivery of some of the most iconic bridges in the U.S. His range and expertise in long-span and cable-supported structures includes suspension, cable-stayed, network arch, movable and pedestrian bridges. His portfolio of first-of-their-kind bridge designs includes the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge in Boston, the S-curved Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge connecting Nebraska to Iowa, the Portsmouth Memorial Vertical Lift Bridge connecting New Hampshire and Maine and the Lake Champlain Bridge between upstate New York and Vermont.
Beyond design innovation, Zoli is widely recognized as a leader in major bridge vulnerability assessments and protective design strategies for vulnerable bridge components. A number of the most iconic bridges in the U.S. incorporate protective designs that Zoli and his team successfully developed and implemented with help from the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, Federal Highway Administration and the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate.
In addition to his work at HNTB, Zoli serves as an adjunct professor of civil engineering at Columbia University, where he helps prepare the next generation of engineers for careers in bridge design.