Alaa M. Rashad is a Professor in the Building Materials and Quality Control Institute, Housing and Building National Research Center (HBRC), Cairo, Egypt, and holds temporary professorship in the Civil Engineering Department, College of Engineering, Shaqra University, Al-Dawadmi, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He received his PhD in Structural Engineering from Cairo University and was a postdoc at the School of Planning, Architecture, and Civil Engineering, Queen's Univer-sity Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom. His research interests include building materials, alkali-activated materials, fire resistance, thermal insulation, recycling, durability, cementitious materials, quality control, and nanotechnology.