Zdenek P. Bazant is a world-renowned top researcher in the field of civil engineering and materials science. A native of the Czech Republic, he studied civil engineering in accordance with family tradition. In 1967, the Czech Technical University in Prague awarded him the Venia Docendi in reinforced concrete construction. From 1969 to date (2021), Zdenek Bazant has worked at the highly respected Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. In 1981-87, he served as director of the Center for Concrete and Geomaterials, which he founded.
Bazant has made landmark contributions to fracture mechanics, micromechanics of destruction of materials, inelastic material laws, viscoelasticity, shrinkage and creep of concrete, the effect of temperature and moisture on this building material, and the stability of structures. He became world famous for an amazingly simple law to account for the experimentally observed Size Effect (influence of a characteristic structural dimension on the nominal strength).