Baidar Bakht, a 1962 graduate in civil engineering from Aligarh University India, obtained his D.I.C. from Imperial College London, and M.Sc. and D.Sc. from London University. After retiring from the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario in 1997 as Principal Research Engineer, Dr. Bakht became President of JMBT Structures Research Inc. Toronto, and is also an Adjunct Professor of Civil Engineering at the universities of Toronto and Manitoba. In addition, he is a Consultant to the ISIS Canada Research Network, a national centre of excellence for research in Canada.

As an innovator and author of several text books and more than 200 journal and conference papers on various aspects of bridge engineering, he has received several awards from not only the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering but also other learned bodies in Canada and abroad. His areas of expertise in bridge engineering include analysis, field testing, soil-steel bridges, timber bridges and fibre reinforced structures. He remains active in bridge code development and was heavily involved in the recent updating of the Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code (CHBDC) and Commentary.

He was the Vice-chair of the Ontario Highway Bridge Design Code (1983 and 1992), and the Chair of Canadian Highway Bridge design Code (2000).