Posted on February 10, 2025 by Sean M. Wood
JoAnn Browning
For the first time since the first edition was published in 1910, a woman will chair the committee determining the standards for reinforced concrete design and construction — JoAnn Browning, Interim Vice President for Research at UTSA. This code is the definitive standard in the United States, and also widely referenced internationally.
Browning is one of three UTSA professors on the American Concrete Institute Committee 318. It has written the rules for properly designing and building reinforced concrete structures for over 100 years.
“This is known as the ‘building code committee,’” Browning said. “We write the code that is adopted through the international building code, and then that’s adopted by the cities in the U.S. as the authority on how to safely design and build reinforced concrete structures.”
She will chair the committee that includes UTSA civil engineering professors Wassim Ghannoum and Adolfo Matamoros.
“This should be a point of pride in the civil engineering and construction communities that UTSA has the kind of faculty who are essential to creating the provisions that ensure we have safe and reliable structures to drive on, go to school in, work in and live in,” Browning said. “Daily, our students are taught by experts who are literally writing the code.”
— Sean M. Wood
