Kassab, Bassam

Kassab, Bassam

Lecturer AY-B, Civil & Environ Engineering

Email

Preferred: bassam.kassab@sjsu.edu

Office hours:

Tuesday, from 8:45 to 9:45 p.m. in ENG 403;

or by appointment on Zoom.

Education

  • Master of Science, Hydrology and Water Resource, Massachusetts Institute Of Technology (MIT), 2000
  • Master of Engineering, Environmental & Water Resources Engineering, American University of Beirut, Lebanon, 1995
  • Bachelor of Engineering, Civil Engineering, American University of Beirut, Lebanon, 1993

Licenses and Certificates

  • Professional Engineer in Civil Engineering (license # C 68999), California, United States, 2005
  • Program and Project Management Certificate, California, United States, 2011

Bio

Bassam Kassab (pronouns: he/él/il/هو) has been working at Valley Water for 22+ years. In 2019, he became the Water Supply Operations Manager and has been leading a unit composed of seven operators, six engineers, and a management analyst who operate a vast water network that includes 10 dams/reservoirs, three pumping stations, and 94 miles of raw water transmission pipelines in Santa Clara County. The raw water system provides untreated water to three water treatment plants; maintains a groundwater recharge program in a complex network of 102 percolation ponds and 98 miles of streams; and supports the fisheries, wildlife, and ecosystem in 294 miles of managed creeks in the county. 

At San José State University, Bassam has been an Adjunct Faculty in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department since January 2014 where he teaches Water Resources Engineering to Senior and Graduate students. The courses he taught are Hydraulic Design (CE 154) and Design of Water Distribution and Wastewater Collection Systems (CE 174). His research interests include water distribution networks, hydraulic transients, deterministic and stochastic hillslope hydrology, flow of dry grains, as well as production and inventory management in Operations Research.

Bassam had also designed and taught a three-level, 18-month-long Spanish class at Valley Water.

Bassam is the executive director of Zarco Films, an independent film production company based in San José, California. He wrote screenplays in Spanish ("Sin Visa" and "Bi.das") and produced many short and feature films that tackled social issues head-on. He is also a songwriter in the four languages that he is fluent in -- Arabic, English, French, and Spanish. His lyrics for "Yo Canto," "Farewell,"  and "O Mother (يا أمي)" were composed into music and performed by the international artist Mike Massy.

Finally, Bassam is an actor with credits including two feature films that were screened at many film festivals around the world -- "Sin Visa" (México & USA, 2015) and the award-winning "All My Life (طول عمري)" (Egypt & USA, 2008) -- and a play titled "Turab Libnan" performed on stage at Stanford University and in San Francisco.

Links

CE 154: https://catalog.sjsu.edu/preview_course_nopop.php?catoid=12&coid=58102

CE 174: https://catalog.sjsu.edu/preview_course_nopop.php?catoid=12&coid=58155