Editor’s Note

Each year, the ASCE Technical Council on Forensic Engineering (TCFE) selects one paper published in this Journal the previous calendar year for the Outstanding Paper Award. The recipients of the 2010 Outstanding Paper Award are Kelly A. Salyards and Linda M. Hanagan.

Salyards and Hanagan’s paper, “Evaluation of Vibration Assessment Criteria and Their Application to Stadium Serviceability,” appeared in the March/April 2010 issue (Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 100–107). The Journal Publications Committee noted that the well-written paper explores an important topic: human perception of vibrations and how that perception relates to current design guidelines. The paper’s direct usefulness to designers of stadium facilities is clear. Award plaques and certificates will be presented to the award recipients.

Kelly A. Salyards, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE (Fig. 1), is an assistant professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. She is active with ASCE as a faculty adviser for Bucknell’s student chapter, an assistant mentor of ASCE’s Excellence in Civil Engineering Education (ExCEEd) program, a member of the TCFE Education Committee, and a reviewer for several ASCE journals. Her research interests include vibration serviceability, crowd-induced excitation, and human-structure interaction, and she enjoys engaging undergraduate students in her research projects. She received her bachelor and masters of architectural engineering (B.A.E./M.A.E.) from Penn State University in 2000. Dr. Salyards worked as a structural designer for several years before returning to Penn State University, where she earned a doctorate in architectural engineering in 2007.

Linda M. Hanagan, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE (Fig. 2), is an associate professor of architectural engineering at Penn State University. She has been on the faculty at Penn State since 1998, and her area of teaching specialization is structural engineering with a particular emphasis in the analysis and design of buildings. She is the recipient of the Penn State Engineering Society’s Outstanding Teaching Award (2003) and the Premier Teaching Award (2008). Dr. Hanagan’s primary research interest is in the vibration serviceability of structures. Her work in this area began in 1991 as a doctoral student at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. After receiving her doctorate in 1994, she continued research as a faculty member at the University of Miami and then at Penn State. She received the prestigious AISC Faculty Fellowship Award in 2003 to continue her work in floor vibration research. In 2005, Dr. Hanagan received a patent for the development of a special-purpose device to control excessive walking-induced vibrations of lightly damped building floors. She has overseen dozens of research projects, participated in several committees, supervised many students, and written numerous papers that have contributed to the body of knowledge in vibration serviceability.

Other nominees for the Outstanding Paper Award were as follows:

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

The time has come to select the winner of the Outstanding Paper Award for 2011. The Publications Committee is studying the papers published in the six 2011 issues and will soon make a recommendation to the TCFE Awards Committee. Readers are invited to submit nominations. If you wish to nominate a paper that you found especially useful or informative, please write to me, indicating your reasons for the nomination. I can be contacted by mail: Kenneth L. Carper, School of Architecture & Construction Management, College of Engineering & Architecture, P.O. Box 642220, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-2220; by phone: (509) 335-1229; by fax: (509) 335-6132; or by e-mail: [email protected]

This issue marks the end of the 25th year of publication of the Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities. The Journal owes much of its success to the many manuscript reviewers who have donated their time to provide constructive comments to writers. Indeed, the reviewers play an equivalent role with the writers in maintaining the quality of this publication. Our reviewers serve without compensation. They are, without exception, highly respected individuals who are very busy in practice and/or academia, yet they find the time to contribute altruistically to the dissemination of useful information in this Journal.

At the end of each year’s final issue, we list those who have provided reviews during the year. I want to extend my personal appreciation for their efforts. If you recognize one of your colleagues on the list, please express your appreciation.