Dr. Mahdi Ghalibafian was born in Tabriz in 1935. After ending the elementary education, he finished his first two years of junior high school in Ferdosi high school in his birthplace. Then he moved to Tehran and completed his recent school-time in Sharaf high school. Afterwards Dr Ghalibafian was graduated in the field of structure in Civil Engineering department of University of Tehran in 1959. He was working as the director of the first part of “Avaj- Pahlavi” road in Technic Corporation during November 1959 till September 1960. Succeeding that, he proceeded to design and analyze some high or small buildings in a computational team from SANO Structural Engineers which had been founded by Fereydoun Saeidi and Hoshiyar Noushin (current Dr Noushin) whom Dr Ghalibafian had gone to college of engineering with. Some of these buildings which were engineered in one and a half year consist of Philips Structure located in Enqelab Street near the Ferdosi Square and several clinics of Social Insurances in Tehran. Philips building is the first concrete structure designed based on seismic methods in Iran.

Achieving the first place among the graduated students of engineering field in 1959, he moved to France later on February 1962 for graduate study. Meanwhile studying, he was involved in European Concrete Committee (current ‘Federation Internationale du Beton’-FIB). Dr Ghalibafian, moreover, succeeded in gaining the C.E.S. certificate, and winning an award in July 1963. In July 1964, he defended his doctoral theses in a high level. Due to the significance of thesis topic and also with the request of “Institut Technique du Batiment et des Travaux Publics, Paris, France” (I.T.B.T.P), he determined to publish it. After attaining his doctoral degree in reinforced concrete construction and distributing his theses, he came back to Iran_ his motherland. Immediately after his returning, he revived the SANO Structural Engineers Team again and started to design different buildings such as the Press Building, central office of Ettelaat newspaper located at the opposite of Ghoor-Khaneh, and central building of Social Insurances Organization. Ettelaat newspaper building is the first structure in Iran which has been designed based on semi-probabolistic methods in limit state. He also provided the second stage in designing the steel and reinforced concrete structures of Machine Sazi Tabriz Group (about 100000 m2). Then he, accompanied by his other college-mate Gholamreza Zohari, founded the “SANO Structural Engineers Group” and named it “SANO Consulting Engineers”. In line with providing executive schemes of Machine Sazi Tabriz Group, Dr Ghalibafian prepared standard symbols for joints in steel structures for the first time in Iran which was edited a little and changed to the national standard a few years later. Nowadays SANO is well-known for designing buildings, especially industrial heavy structures, during recent 35 years and also is known for improvement of damaged constructions and reinforcing the existed structures against earthquake over 25 years.

13 national standards for Institute of Standards & Industrial Research of Iran (ISIRI), 19 technical publications for Management and Planning Organization like Iranian Concrete code (the first and the revised version), 10 subjects of national construction regulations for the ministry of housing and urban development, a proficiency standard and a didactic pamphlet for the seismic design of bridge for Tehran municipality, 5 publications in building & housing research center like Standard 519 (minimum load on buildings) and the first and the revised version of Standard 2800 (Iranian code for seismic resistance design of building).

He was also a member of perennial committee of revising the seismic resistance design of building, committee of compilation of Iranian concrete code, national construction regulations council. As a referee, he was responsible for assessing and considering several research projects and scientific papers sent from different engineering colleges, research organizations and specialized publications; Dr Ghalibafian has also worked on editing and authoring or translating several books technically. He was one of the founders of the following groups or associations:

Iranian association of structural engineers (1968).(the association head from 1977 till 1979 and from 1990 till 1994), Association of Iranian Geotechnical engineers (Association of soil mechanics and foundation engineering of Iran)(1972), Alumni Association of Engineering Faculty of Tehran University (1990), (member of High Council from the 1st period till the 7th one), Iranian Concrete Institute (2000)

The membership of the following formations: International Concrete Committee (former CEB), The International Federation for Structural Concrete (fib - fédération internationale du béton) from 1963, Iranian Association of engineers from 1975 till 1978, Iranian Society of Consulting Engineers (from 1978), (the Head of the Society in 1979 and 1980), National Committee of large dams of Iran (from 1983, two periods), International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering_ IABSE (from 1992), System of Structure and Installation Engineers (from the beginning, 1975 till 1978), Construction Engineering Disciplinary Organization of Tehran (from the beginning, 1993) and member of board of directors in the first and second experimental period and member of the first period of the central council of the Construction Engineering Disciplinary Organization of Iran, Iranian Society of Civil Engineers (from the beginning, 1994), Society of technical and executive management (from 1995).

Dr Mahdi Ghalibafian had a very special personality in his life and work and the father of Iranian concrete science is proper for his prominent character.

He passed away on Tuesday 12th June, 2007 in 71-year old age.