Dr. Nour Bouhou, PSP, is a vice president at Peritia Partners, LLC. She is a project controls, construction claims and litigation expert. With over 10 years of experience within the A/E/C industry, Dr. Bouhou is an industry leader, published author, and university professor.

Nour was born in the city of Mohammedia, a suburban city of Casablanca, Morocco. At an early age, Nour was keen on science and mathematics, and was passionate about solving complex problems. After graduating high school in Morocco, with the highest honors, Nour decided to move to France to pursue her undergraduate studies. She was admitted in Lycee Descares (in Tours, France), to study advanced mathematics, physics, and engineering disciplines, then joined Ecole Centrale de Lille (Lille, France), a top engineering school in France.

After receiving her bachelor’s degree from Ecole Centrale de Lille, Dr. Bouhou joined Bouygues Construction, a multinational general contractor, to work on an infrastructure project in Rouen, France. The project was part of a program that consisted of the construction of 52 intervention centers across France, for the French Department of Transportation. Dr. Bouhou had the chance to be part of the pilot project for this program, which received significant media and press exposure. She planned and coordinated all trade works in the building by respecting safety, quality, and schedule. She set up files for high-energy performance and low-energy consumption building certifications and managed the commissioning and closeout phase of the pilot project.

After the completion of this project, Dr. Bouhou pursued her studies to receive her master’s degree in civil engineering from Ecole Centrale de Lille. Upon completion of her MS degree, she again joined Bouygues Construction as a field engineer on the highly anticipated and mediatized project “Challenger”, which consisted of the renovation of the Bouygues Construction headquarters in a suburban area of Paris, France. Dr. Bouhou managed the quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) process of all trade works and ensured the project compliance to building energy performance certifications; as a result, the “Challenger” project was awarded HQE®, LEED®, BREEAM® triple certification.

Dr. Bouhou’s direct exposure and management of the building energy performance certification for the Challenger project drove her interest in furthering her understanding and studies of sustainability and how it can be implemented and used to improve building performance. In addition, her experience on job sites demonstrated the need of effective project controls practices, which was not an advanced practice area in France at the time. Dr. Bouhou then decided to pursue her doctorate degree at the University of Texas at Austin to advance her understanding of both project controls and sustainability practices.

During her Ph.D. studies in the Construction Engineering and Project Management program, Dr. Bouhou worked as a consultant in an energy efficiency consulting company, helping clients (owner, contractors, and developers), find better solutions to save building energy and improve building performance. After graduating from UT Austin with a Doctor of Philosophy degree (Ph.D.), Dr. Bouhou joined a construction consulting company, where she assisted owners, contractors, and subcontractors across numerous sectors within the AEC industry on both proactive and forensic consulting projects. She specialized in analyzing and preparing claim evaluations and provided litigation support to clients in complex construction-related disputes involving commercial buildings, educational, industrial, residential, healthcare, and others. Dr. Bouhou also provided expert witness testimony on construction-related claims and disputes involving cost, schedule, and productivity issues. She was keen on helping clients better their project controls practices by providing technical training to their personnel, on scheduling and project controls best practices, claims avoidance, and other subjects.

In the summer of 2020, Dr. Bouhou started her new consulting firm, along with other partners, called Peritia Partners, a construction consulting firm helping clients plan, build and protect their projects. Her firm delivers a broad range of services, including construction advisory, project controls, dispute resolution/litigation support and construction training. As the Vice President of Services at Peritia, Dr. Bouhou oversees the company services department and provides scheduling and change order evaluation services on large scale mixed-used projects, infrastructure projects, as well as military projects requiring DoD cost-loaded schedule reporting and time impact analysis requirement. In claims situations, she performs schedule delay analyses, productivity impact assessments, damages quantifications and serves as a testifying expert. Dr. Bouhou continues to provide technical trainings to owners and contractors to ensure the proper implementation of project controls best practices to avoid claims and litigation situations.

Dr. Bouhou delivered multiple technical and white papers and spoke at about 25 seminars and conferences. Her passion for learning and continued education incentivized her to start teaching undergraduate and graduate students about project controls related subjects. She is an adjunct professor at California State University, in the construction management master’s program, where she taught risk management, and planning and scheduling classes. She is also adjunct professor at NKU College of Business, where she teaches construction scheduling and advanced project controls.

In addition to her professional career and academic involvement, Dr. Bouhou has been actively involved in industry organizations. Dr. Bouhou’s involvement with AACE started in 2014, when she was invited, as a graduate student, to attend a presentation hosted by AACE Central Texas Section. She then decided to become actively involved with AACE International. She was appointed as the AACE Central Texas Section treasurer in 2014 and 2015, then vice president in 2016. After moving to the San Francisco Bay area in 2016, Dr. Bouhou served as the secretary and vice president of the AACE SF Bay Area Section. She was then elected president of the SF Bay Area Section for two consecutive years. Dr. Bouhou was also a contributing member with the AACE Educational Board. With her strong volunteering activity with AACE, Dr. Bouhou was recently elected as a regional director for AACE International. She will lead Region 6 sections, including all California, Washington state, Hawaii, Nevada and Idaho sections.

Dr. Bouhou has also been involved with other industry organizations, including the American Bar Association (ABA), the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), the Associated General Contractors (AGC), and the Western Winter Workshop, LLC (WWW).

She strongly believes in continued education and networking to improve one’s professional career, and lead and advance the industry. She highly encourages young professionals within the AEC community to volunteer within leading industry organizations, such as AACE International, and attend local and national networking events, to better their technical knowledge, broaden their network and seize opportunities that will both fast track their professional career and advance the industry. She further urges more tenure and experienced professionals to mentor young professionals and foster a leadership and advancement culture within their organizations, to help shape successful and brilliant leaders of the future.