Editor’s Note

Associate editors (AEs) are the backbone of the Journal. AEs are experts in their field who are carefully screened and selected by the editor in consultation with chairs of ASCE technical committees. The nomination of an individual as AE of the Journal of Structural Engineering (JSE) represents a notable professional achievement and attests to the individual’s standing and recognition in the academic and research community. I would like to utilize some of my editorial space in this and forthcoming issues to introduce our readers to these remarkable individuals who serve in volunteer roles and do a commendable job of carrying out peer reviews and maintaining extremely high standards to make JSE the preeminent journal in the field of structural engineering.

Dr. Emin Aktan (Fig. 1) received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1973 in earthquake-structural engineering. After serving at the Middle East Technical University in Turkey, he joined the University of California at Berkeley as a research engineer. From 1979–1984 he was mentored by Dr. Vitelmo Bertero, Dr. Egor Popov, and Dr. Ray Clough, and managed the U.S.-Japan Cooperative Research Program on RC Buildings. Subsequently he held academic positions at several universities until joining Drexel University in 1997. Dr. Aktan’s research since 1984 has focused on structural identification and health monitoring of operating prototype buildings and bridges. He has strived to integrate analysis and experiment with heuristics, and participated in the structural identification of dozens of operating and decommissioned constructed systems including major long-span suspension bridges. Dr. Aktan served as the founding chair of the ASCE SEI Technical Committees on “Performance-based Structural Engineering” and “Structural Identification of Constructed Systems.”

His passion is reforming civil engineering education by leveraging operating multidomain infrastructure systems as field laboratories for research and education. Dr. Aktan has been funded by NSF, FHwA, EPA, and by various state agencies since he started his career as a faculty member in 1984. He has supported and graduated more than a dozen Ph.D. students, published widely in leading international journals, and consulted for prestigious corporations and university programs.

Dr. Anil K. Agrawal (Fig. 2) is a professor of Civil engineering at the City College of the City University of New York. He received his B.Tech. in civil engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, in 1988, his M.Eng. in civil engineering from the University of Tokyo in 1991, and his Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of California, Irvine, in August 1997, and joined the City College of New York in September 1998. He also worked as a research engineer at the Technical Research Institute of the Mitsui Construction Company in Japan from 1991 to 1993. He has published more than 50 journal papers and more than 100 conference papers. He is currently the member of the executive committee of the U.S. Panel of International Association of Structural Control and Health Monitoring, chair of ASCE Committee on Structural Control, and associate editor of the Journal of Bridge Engineering. His areas of interest include earthquake engineering, structural dynamics, structural control, smart materials and systems, dynamic behavior of structures subject to blasts/explosive loads, structural health monitoring, bridge management systems, and asset management of physical infrastructure.

Dr. Rakesh Gupta’s (Fig. 3) expertise is in the area of structural wood engineering and wood science. He is currently a professor in the Department of Wood Science and Engineering at Oregon State University. He teaches courses on the mechanical behavior of wood and wood science to students majoring in wood science, and design of wood structures to students majoring in Civil Engineering. The major thrust of his research program is in the area of timber engineering and mechanics. Specifically, in the last few years, his research projects have been in the following areas: (1) mechanical properties/behavior of wood, (2) seismic behavior of wood-frame buildings and components, (3) load paths and system behavior in light-frame wood construction, and (4) tsunami/hurricane surge wave loading on wood frame structures. He is currently co-PI on an NSF-funded project titled “NEESR II: Mitigating the Risk of Coastal Infrastructure through understanding Tsunami-Structure Interaction and Modeling.” He has more than fifty refereed journal publications in the area of wood engineering and mechanics, and has chaired numerous sessions on wood engineering at various national and international conferences. He is an active member of the Committee of Wood of ASCE, and has chaired the Committee on Wood Education in the past. He was also a steering committee member of the “Wood Engineering Challenges in the New Millennium—Critical Research Needs” preconference workshop held at the 2008 Structures Congress in Vancouver, and chaired the session on “Designing Wood Structures for Durability.” He is a member of Forest Products Society, Society of Wood Science and Technology, American Forest and Paper Association, and American Society for Testing and Materials.

Dr. Vinay Gupta (Fig. 4) has been a professor at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK) since 1999. He joined IITK as assistant professor in 1990. His research is in the fields of earthquake engineering and random vibrations, and he has published on a variety of topics in these fields. His specialties include wavelet-based seismic response of structures, seismic response of secondary systems, wavelet-based simulation of spectrum-compatible accelerograms, performance-based seismic design, peak statistics in seismic response, and strength reduction factors. He is an author of more than 55 papers in refereed journals. Dr. Gupta is a life fellow of the Indian Society of Earthquake Technology, a fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering, an affiliate member of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, and a member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. He has been editor of ISET’s Journal of Earthquake Technology since 1998, and an associate editor of the Journal of Structural Engineering since 2003. He was vice-president of the Indian Society of Earthquake Technology from 2003 to 2007. He was awarded the Young Engineer Award in 1997 by Indian National Academy of Engineering and Kapitza Medal in 2004 by the U.S. chapter of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences.

Dr. Bing Li’s (Fig. 5) background includes both academia and engineering practice. He has an undergraduate degree from Tongji University, Shanghai, China. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, under the supervision of Professor Bob Park. He worked in building design practice for ten years in Shanghai, New Zealand, and Hong Kong before joining the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore in 1999. He is a Chartered Structural Engineer in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Hong Kong.

Dr. Li teaches undergraduate and graduate classes on structural analysis and design of RC structures. Dr. Li’s research interests encompass the field of seismic and blast performance of reinforced concrete and precast building structures, with a focus on large-scale tests of reinforced-concrete components and structures as well as analytical modeling and the development of design models and guidelines. He participates in seismic- and blast-resistant code developments and implementations of research results in engineering practice. He was awarded the Defense Technology Prize 2006 by the Ministry of Defense in Singapore.

Dr. Elisa Sotelino (Fig. 6) received a B.S. degree in civil engineering and an M.S. in structural engineering from PUC-Rio in Brazil. In 1984 she began her graduate studies at Brown University where she received an M.S. in applied mathematics and a Ph.D. in solid mechanics. Since 1990, Sotelino has been in the faculty of two top-ten land grand universities (1990–2004 at Purdue University, and from 2005 to the present at Virginia Tech). Her research activities in computational mechanics integrate emerging computing technologies, such as high-performance computing, and structural and solid mechanics.

Some of her current research projects include, but are not limited to, the behavior of structures under fire loading; multiscale characterization, modeling, and simulation of stone-based infrastructure materials; optimization of bridge structural components made of ultra high performance concrete and long-term bridge performance. During her tenure at Purdue University, she was a key player in a team effort on the creation of a new research area, which consisted of the creation of the SECSDE (Structural Engineering Concurrent Software Development Environment). She is the author or coauthor of over 80 papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings. Fourteen Ph.D. students and several M.S. students have graduated under her supervision or cosupervision. Additionally, Sotelino has been active in service both within the profession as well as within the university setting. She has been AE of the Journal since 2002. Sotelino also chaired the ASCE Technical Committee on Emerging Computing Technology (1999–2003), and has served as a member on both the advisory board and the scientific committee for the European Community on Computational Methods and Applied Sciences Thematic conferences on Computational Methods in Structural Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering (2007 and 2009). In addition, she has been invited to give numerous presentations and keynote lectures at international conferences, and has coorganized three NSF-sponsored international workshops.

Eleven technical papers and a technical note have been selected from the following themes: safety and reliability, seismic effects, shock and vibratory effects, metal structures, wood structures, and structural optimization.