Dr. Dan M. Frangopol is the first holder of the Fazlur R. Khan Endowed Chair of Structural Engineering and Architecture at Lehigh University. Before joining Lehigh University in 2006, he was Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he is now Professor Emeritus. From 1979-1983, he held the position of Project Structural Engineer with A. Lipski Consulting Engineers in Brussels, Belgium. In 1976, he received his doctorate in Applied Sciences from the University of Liage, Belgium. In 2010, ASCE named him a Distinguished Member for defining much of the practice for lifecycle management methods of deteriorating structures and optimization approaches, and noted that his work has "not only saved time and money, but very likely also saved lives."

Dr. Frangopol is an experienced researcher and consultant to industry and government agencies, both nationally and abroad. His work has been funded by NSF, FHWA, ONR, NASA, USACE, AFOSR and by numerous other agencies. Dr. Frangopol holds three honorary doctorates from Belgium and Romania. He is an Honorary Professor at six universities (Hong Kong Polytechnic, Tongji, Southeast, Tianjin, Chang'an, and Harbin Institute of Technology). For his contributions, Dr. Frangopol has been recognized with several awards, including the T. Y. Lin Medal, Newmark Medal, Khan Life-Cycle Civil Engineering Medal, Croes Medal, Howard Award, Wellington Prize and Moisseiff Award, to name only a few.

Dr. Frangopol is devoted to serving the profession, having held various leadership positions in national and international organizations. He is the Founding President of the International Association for Bridge Maintenance and Safety (IABMAS) and of the International Association for Life Cycle Civil Engineering (IALCCE), and the Vice-President of the International Association for the Structural Safety and Reliability (IASSAR). He is also the Founding Chair of the ASCE-SEI Technical Council on life-cycle performance, safety, reliability and risk of structural systems and of the IASSAR Technical Committee on life-cycle performance, cost and optimization. He is a member of the Board of Governors of the Engineering Mechanics Institute (EMI) of the ASCE, Past-Chair of the Technical Activities Division of the 20,000+ members of the Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) of the ASCE, and Past Vice-President of the International Society for Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure (ISHMII). He is also Honorary President of both the IABMAS-Italy Group and the IABMAS-Brazil Group, and Honorary Member of the IABMAS-China Group.

Dr. Frangopol has left an indelible legacy of work, having authored or co-authored more than 300 books, book chapters, and refereed journal articles, and numerous papers in conference proceedings. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of Structure and Infrastructure Engineering, a leading peer-reviewed journal.