Dr. Ariaratnam is a Professor and Sunstate Chair of Construction Management and Engineering at Arizona State University. He received his B.A.Sc. from the University of Waterloo (Canada) in 1989 and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1991 and 1994, respectively. Prior to joining ASU, he spent five years as a faculty member in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alberta. From 1995-96, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO. His primary area of research interest lies in Underground Infrastructure Management and Rehabilitation. Research in this area has focused on the development of new technologies in construction engineering and applications of underground trenchless construction techniques, specifically Horizontal Directional Drilling and Trenchless Pipe Replacement. He has published over 350 technical papers and reports, co-authored eight textbooks, and is a co-holder of five patents. He was appointed and served on two Study Committees of the U.S. National Academies.
Through his research and educational initiatives, Dr. Ariaratnam has received recognition from the California Department of Transportation, City of Los Angeles, North American Society for Trenchless Technology (NASTT), and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), where he received the prestigious John O. Bickel Award, Arthur M. Wellington Prize, Pipeline Division Award of Excellence, and the Stephen D. Bechtel Pipeline Engineering Award. In 2003, he was presented with the Young Civil Engineer Achievement Award from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Ariaratnam received an award of recognition from Halliburton Energy Services for contributions to underground technology in 2004. The Phoenix Business Journal named him to the prestigious “Top Forty under 40” list in 2006. Dr. Ariaratnam was named as the 2012 Trenchless Technology Person of the Year by Trenchless Technology magazine. In 2019, he became only the seventh person to receive the prestigious Gold Medal from the International Society for Trenchless Technology (ISTT), its highest honor. Professionally, Dr. Ariaratnam serves as a Past Chairman of the ISTT, Past Chairman of the ASCE Pipelines Division Executive Board, and is currently President-Elect on the Board of Governors of the ASCE Utility Engineering & Survey Institute (UESI). He was elected as Fellow of ASCE in 2015 and Fellow of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) in 2022. In 2022, he was elected as Distinguished Member of ASCE, the highest honor given to a Civil Engineer by the Society. Dr. Ariaratnam was elected to the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE) in 2018, the US National Academy of Construction (NAC) in 2019, and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts (EASA) in 2023. He became a Board-Certified Pipeline Engineer-Water (BC.PLW) from ASCE in 2024. In March 2022, Dr. Ariaratnam was appointed by U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to serve on the Gas Pipeline Advisory Committee of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Additionally, he has provided consulting services both domestically and internationally.