Outstanding Journal Paper Awards for 2014

The ASCE Forensic Engineering Division (FED) traditionally selects one paper published in this journal the previous calendar year for our Outstanding Paper Award. This year, the Publications Committee, the Awards Committee, and the FED Executive Committee unanimously selected two equally outstanding papers for the award. One paper is from our special issue, Performance of Bridges under Critical Natural Hazards, and the other was chosen from the remaining five issues published in 2014. The award recipients are Misko Cubrinovski, Jennifer Haskell, Anna Winkley, Kelly Robinson, and Liam Wotherspoon; and Yong Tan, Bin Wei, Yanping Diao, and Xin Zhou. Award certificates mounted on wall plaques will be given to each recipient, and they will be recognized at the Seventh ASCE Forensic Engineering Congress in Miami, Florida.

The paper by Cubrinovski, Haskell, Winkley, Robinson, and Wotherspoon, “Performance of Bridges in Liquefied Deposits during the 2010–2011 Christchurch, New Zealand, Earthquakes,” appeared in the special issue, Performance of Bridges under Critical Natural Hazards, January/February 2014 (Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 24–39). The Journal Publications Committee noted that the well-written paper provided a concise description of the damaging earthquakes and presented three road bridge performance case histories in detail. The informative content of the paper makes it a useful contribution for both academicians and practitioners.

Misko Cubrinovski, Ph.D. (Fig. 1) is Professor of Geotechnical and Earthquake Engineering in the Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. He holds a B.Sc. degree in civil engineering (1982), an M.Sc. degree in earthquake engineering (1989) from UCM Skopje, Macedonia, and a Ph.D. degree in geotechnical engineering from the University of Tokyo (1993). His career involves 32 years of work in academia and the profession, including 15 years in Japan and 10 years in New Zealand. Dr. Cubrinovski’s research interests and expertise are in geotechnical earthquake engineering and, in particular, problems associated with liquefaction, seismic response of earth structures, and soil-structure interaction. He has authored or coauthored over 250 peer-reviewed publications and has had a major leadership role in the research and recovery efforts following the 2010–2011 Christchurch earthquakes. In recognition of his scholarly work and research, he has received prestigious fellowships and awards in New Zealand, Italy, Japan, and several outstanding paper awards from journals and international conferences. He is a Faculty Member of the ROSE School, University of Pavia, IUSS, Italy; Theme Leader and Flagship Project Leader of QuakeCoRE, New Zealand; and Fellow of the University of Tokyo, Japan.

Jennifer Haskell, Ph.D. (Fig. 2) is Lecturer of Geotechnical Engineering in the Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Her research focuses on improving our understanding of the seismic response of infrastructure, including foundations, earth dams, and embankments. She is active in the areas of physical modeling of geo-structures and processes, and experimental geo-micromechanics, in particular in the area of seismic soil liquefaction. Dr. Haskell has experience in seismic centrifuge modeling, including simulation of lateral spreading effects on Christchurch bridges following the Canterbury earthquakes in 2010–2011. She received her B.E.(Hons) in civil engineering from the University of Canterbury in 2009 and Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 2014, the latter supported by a prestigious Woolf Fisher Scholarship and focusing on developing guidance for the design of pile foundations in laterally spreading soils.

Anna Winkley, M.E. (Fig. 3) studied civil engineering as an undergraduate at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, completing her B.E.(Hons) in 2010. During the summer of 2010–2011 she was part of a University of Canterbury–led team gathering extensive geotechnical field data following the September 2010 Darfield earthquake. This work prompted Winkley to continue her studies further, and the subsequent February 2011 Christchurch earthquake helped to guide her research interests. Her M.E. research studied the effects of liquefaction and lateral spreading on bridge pile foundations following the Christchurch earthquake(s). In the process, Winkley traveled as far afield as Italy to study at the ROSE School. She is currently working as a geotechnical engineer at Tonkin + Taylor in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Kelly Robinson, P.E. (Fig. 4) graduated from California Polytechnic State University in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. She then began working for Fugro West, Inc., in Santa Barbara, California, for about three years, where she obtained her P.E. license. In July 2010, Robinson and her husband moved to Christchurch, New Zealand, to further enhance her geotechnical background. She initially had hopes of gaining a master’s degree from the Civil and Natural Resources Engineering Department at the University of Canterbury. Following the 2010 Darfield earthquake in September, she began documenting lateral spreading in Canterbury through ground surveying, along with the help of many others. After the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake, Robinson decided to capitalize on the research aspects of this rare sequence of events and upgraded her research project to a Ph.D. She has spent the last few years analyzing the diverse and complex dataset of liquefaction-induced lateral spreading in the Canterbury earthquakes and recently submitted her thesis for examination. She is now back in California continuing her career in geotechnical engineering at a local consulting firm in San Luis Obispo.

Liam Wotherspoon, Ph.D. (Fig. 5) is a Senior Lecturer in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He is involved across a range of earthquake geotechnical engineering research areas, including characterization of the seismic response of bridges and port facilities, dynamic site characterization, and assessment of liquefaction and its impacts. Much of his current research focuses on the effects of the Canterbury earthquake sequence and its lessons for future design and practice. Dr. Wotherspoon is a member of the management committee of the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering and QuakeCoRE, the New Zealand Center of Research Excellence in Earthquake Resilience. He received his B.E. and his Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of Auckland in 2003 and 2009, respectively.

The paper by Tan, Wei, Diao, and Zhou, “Spatial Corner Effects of Long and Narrow Multipropped Deep Excavations in Shanghai Soft Clay,” was published in the July/August 2014 issue (Vol. 28, No. 4, paper no. 04015015). Based on field data from nine metro-station pits, the well-illustrated paper provides analyses and recommendations for future geotechnical practice involving deep excavation projects.

Yong Tan, Ph.D. (Fig. 6) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geotechnical Engineering, College of Civil Engineering, Tongji University, in Shanghai, China. Prior to joining academia in June 2009, Dr. Tan worked as a project engineer for Terracon Consultants, Inc., in Savannah, Georgia, on projects of all geotechnical types. His consulting experience includes site characterization, ground stabilization, field and laboratory testing, foundation evaluation and design, geotechnical instrumentation, seismic risk evaluation, and site-specific response analysis. His main research interests include deep excavations, shield tunnels and pile foundations, with a particular focus on identifying, characterizing, and modeling performance of complex buried infrastructures and their interactions with other urban infrastructure systems or preexisting buildings. Dr. Tan has been involved in a number of research and consulting projects on these topics in the last 15 years and has published over 30 technical papers in leading professional journals. The key projects that he was involved in include relocation of U.S. Route 44 in peat bogs, expansion of the Port of Savannah, rebuilding of the Savannah Imperial Sugar facility, and expansion of Southern LNG Elba Island Terminal as well as construction of several Shanghai metro stations, shield tunnel linings and large-scale foundation pits. Dr. Tan holds a B.Eng. (Tongji University 1999), M.Eng. (Tongji University 2002), and Ph.D. (University of Massachusetts 2005), all in civil engineering.

Bin Wei, M.Eng. (Fig. 7) is a senior engineer at China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group Company, East China Survey and Design Co., Ltd., in Shanghai, China. She worked for 13 years in design of underground railway transportation systems. Her design experience includes numerous metro stations, shield tunnel linings, and ventilation shafts in large cities of China (e.g., Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Xiamen, and Nanchang). Wei received her B.Eng. and M.Eng. in civil engineering from Tongji University in 1999 and 2004, respectively.

Yanping Diao, M.Eng. (Fig. 8) is a staff engineer at East China Architectural Design and Research Institute Co., Ltd. (ECADI) in Shanghai, China. Prior to joining ECADI, he worked for China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group Company (CREEGC) from March 2008 to March 2014 and AECOM-Mausell in Shenzhen from July 2006 to February 2008. At CREEGC, he designed metro stations in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Hefei, and Ningbo. One metro station he designed, South Qilianshan Road Station of Shanghai Metro Line 13, was awarded the First Prize for 2011 by Shanghai Rail Transit Construction Group. Diao received his B.Eng. in civil engineering and M.Eng. in engineering mechanics from Zhengzhou University in 2003 and 2006, respectively.

Xin Zhou, B.Eng. (Fig. 9) is a staff engineer at China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group Company, East China Survey and Design Co., Ltd., in Shanghai, China. She has 10 years of design experience for metro stations. The projects she designed included several metro stations in Shanghai, Ningbo, Changsu and Nanchang, having poor subsurface conditions. Zhou received her B.Eng. in civil engineering from Southwest Jiaotong University in 2005.

Other nominees for the Outstanding Paper Award were

Congratulations are extended to each of these authors. Nominations submitted by journal readers were appreciated.