This book helps engineering students and practicing engineers understand the fundamentals of probability, statistics, and reliability methods, especially their applications, limitations, and potential.
Bilal M. Ayyub, PhD, PE, DistMASCE, HonMASME, is an A. James Clark School of Engineering Professor and Director of the Center for Technology and Systems Management at the University of Maryland, College Park and was a visiting fellow at the National Security Analysis Department of the Applied Physics Laboratory from 2015-2016. He was a chair professor at Tongji University, Shanghai, China (2016-2018) and is currently the Co-Director of its International Joint Research Center for Resilient Infrastructure. He completed his PhD and MSCE degrees from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1983 and 1981, and BSCE from Kuwait University in 1980. Dr. Ayyub's main research interests and work are in risk, resilience, sustainability, uncertainty, and decision analysis, applied to civil, infrastructure, and energy. Professor Ayyub is also a fellow of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME), the Structural Engineering Institute (SEI), and the Society for Risk Analysis (2017-018 Treasurer), and a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Dr. Ayyub completed research and development projects for governmental and private entities worldwide. He is the recipient of several awards, most recently the 2024 ASCE OPAL Award for Education; the 2018 ASCE Alfredo Ang Award on Risk Analysis and Management of Civil Infrastructure; the 2019 ASCE President Medal for efforts to bring adaptive design to the profession to help address a changing climate; the 2019 ASCE Le Val Lund Award for contributions to resilience enhancement and risk reduction of lifeline-networked systems through measurement science and associated economics of informing policy and decision-making practices; the 2018 ENR Newsmaker Award for passionate efforts in giving engineers their first formal guidance to be more resilient to weather extremes when designing infrastructure; and the 2016 ASNE Solberg Award for significant engineering research and development accomplishments in the field of ship survivability. He is the author and co-author of more than 650 publications in journals, conference proceedings, and reports, and the founding editor-in-chief of the ASCEASME Journal on Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems in its two parts on civil and mechanical engineering. In addition to 15 edited books, his eight textbooks include the following titles: Uncertainty Modeling and Analysis for Engineers and Scientists (Chapman & Hall/CRC 2006 with G. Klir), Risk Analysis in Engineering and Economics (Chapman & Hall/CRC 2003, 2014), Elicitation of Expert Opinions for Uncertainty and Risks (CRC Press 2002), and Numerical Methods for Engineers (Prentice Hall 1996 with McCuen, 2nd ed. Chapman & Hall/CRC 2016). Dr. Ayyub is an academician of the Georgian National Academy of Science, Tbilisi, Georgia, and serves on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Science Advisory Board, the National Academies Board of Environmental Change and Society, and the Roundtable on Macroeconomics and Climate Related Risks and Opportunities.
Richard H. McCuen, PhD, is an emeritus professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Maryland. He retired as the Ben Dyer Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering (1998-2020). Dr. McCuen received a BSCE degree from Carnegie-Mellon University (1967) and MSCE and PhD (1971) degrees from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He was a faculty member at the University of Maryland for 49 years and served as Director of the Engineering Honors Program for more than 35 years. He is the author of 29 textbooks including Hydrologic Analysis and Design (4th ed., 2017), Modeling Hydrologic Change (2002), and Critical Thinking, Idea Innovation, and Creativity (2023). He received the 2015 Ven Te Chow Award for Research, Education, and Service from ASCE, the 1991 James M. Robbins Award for Excellence in Teaching from Chi Epsilon, the 2017 President's Outstanding Service Award from the AWRA, and the 1988 Icko Iben Award from the AWRA.
