Dr. Dai’s primary professional and scholarly contributions have dealt with material design, characterization, test and analysis for sustainable civil infrastructure applications, especially on self-healing abilities, damage mechanism diagnosis and multi-physical interactions in asphalt mixtures or concrete. Her research integrates design, processing and characterization, computational analysis, experimental testing and sensor techniques to investigate asphalt mixtures, concrete, geopolymer and fiber-reinforced polymer composites. Her research has been involved with other multidisciplinary areas: micromechanics, finite element method, discrete element method, fracture mechanics, molecular dynamic simulation, image-based computation, characterization and sensing for damage mechanism, self-healing materials, alternative and sustainable infrastructure materials, active-material actuator design and aerodynamic and aeroelastic simulation. She has taught class such as matrix structural analysis, finite element analysis and advanced mechanics of materials. Dr. Dai has been one of the principle investigators of research projects funded by National Science Foundation and State Department of Transportation. Her group has investigated the performance and behavior of asphalt mixtures, chemo-physical characterization, fracture and self-healing construction materials, Non-destructive ultrasonic and acoustic techniques, internal damage diagnosis and simulation in concrete, actuator design and wind-structure interaction for vibration reduction. She has authored and co-authored more than 60 peer reviewed papers including 45 journal articles in ASCE Journal of Engineering Mechanics, ASCE Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering, Mechanics of Materials, Construction & Building Materials, Materials and Structures, International Journal for Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanics, Fuels, International Journal of Pavement Engineering, Journal of Transportation Research Board, Journal of Association of Asphalt Paving Technologists, and Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering. She is an associate editor for ASCE Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering. She is a member of ASCE granular material committee, bitumen committee, pavement committee, and geophysics committee.