Karbhari was elected for his “distinguished contributions to the field of composites in civil infrastructure, particularly in low-cost processing, durability and damage tolerance, rehabilitation and multi-threat mitigation.” The AAAS is the world's largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science.
In 2022, he was named a Fierce Education Leader for being at “the forefront of re-envisioning the future of higher education for more than a decade through his leadership in areas such as enhancing access and equity while increasing excellence, increasing integration between academic knowledge and talent development for the workforce and entrepreneurship.” Karbhari's tenure as President of the University of Texas at Arlington had two major controversies, the latter of which led directly to his resignation on March 19, 2020.
She had been terminated in March 2019 and alleged then-President Karhbari had a history of bullying, mistreating, and discriminating against Robinson, Linda Johnsrud, Nan Ellin, and Lynne Waters according to the lawsuit.
[9] The second controversy was related to a 2019 audit report involving Karbhari's violations of UT System and UT-Arlington rules and guidelines in addition to state laws.
Beginning in January 2019, the state auditor referred to the UT System anonymous complaints relating to UT-Arlington's online education recruiting and enrollment practices which directly led to an outside firm, Protiviti, being selected to investigate the allegations.
[12] Karhbari initially wrote to then-UT System Chancellor James Milliken on Jan 6, 2020, that he intended to announce his resignation no later than January 31.