Hesham Rakha is the Samuel Reynolds Pritchard Professor of Engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and a courtesy professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech. He directs the Center for Sustainable Mobility, conducting research to make transportation systems more efficient, safer, and greener. Rakha studies optimization of ground transportation modes, network control strategies, emerging technology safety, system interdependencies, and evacuation routing.

He is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association, the International Artificial Intelligence Industry Alliance, and the Canadian Academy of Engineering. He is a member of the National Academy of Artificial Intelligence and a professional engineer in Ontario, Canada.