Rima Taher, PhD, PE, is a consulting engineer in civil/structural engineering and a university lecturer at NJIT’s College of Architecture and Design, where she teaches building technology courses. Taher also helps prepare architecture graduates for the licensing exam and has authored a book on the topic. Taher teaches some courses at NJIT’s Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, and has her own engineering consulting practice in New Jersey.

Taher has written extensively about best building design and construction practices to reduce wind pressures on building surfaces and to resist high winds and hurricanes in residential or commercial construction. “Design of Low-Rise Buildings for Extreme Wind Events” (Journal of Architectural Engineering, March, 2007) by Taher highlighted such research findings. Wind researchers at the Center for Building Science and Technology (CSTB) in France, researched and tested reduced-scale home models at its wind tunnel facilities, and developed a prototype of a “cyclonic” or hurricane-resistant dwelling. Taher cooperated with the CSTB wind researchers, working on the structural aspect of the home’s design.

In 2003, Taher lectured at the Wind Engineering Research Center at Tokyo Polytechnic University in Japan. Following the devastating earthquake of 2010 in Haiti, Taher prepared a document on Best Building Practices in Hurricane and Earthquake Prone Areas for Architecture for Humanity (AFH) which was circulated by AFH in Haiti. She was also recently invited to lecture on this topic at a conference organized by the Inter-American Development Bank and the Ministry of Education of Chile in Santiago, Chile, in 2010.

In 1999 Taher received NJIT's Teaching Excellence Award in the category of Instruction by a Special Lecturer.

Taher received a doctorate of civil engineering/ building technology with honors in 1986 from Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, Paris, France; a master's degree in civil engineering (Building Science & Technology) in 1983 from ENPC, Paris, France (Diplôme d'Etudes Approfondies); and a bachelor of civil engineering and urban planning in 1982 from Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon in Lyon, France.

Last update: January 21, 2011