 Reginald DesRoches talks with representatives of the Haitian government after an earthquake devastated the country in 2010. DesRoches’ work on seismic risk assessment of highway bridges and vulnerability models has earned him the 2015 Charles Martin Duke Lifeline Earthquake Engineering Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers. (Photo Courtesy of Reginald DesRoches.) |
Reginald DesRoches has won this year’s Charles Martin Duke Lifeline Earthquake Engineering Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The society cited DesRoches’ “outstanding contributions to the development of new methods and approaches for seismic risk assessment of highway bridges and his leadership in lifeline earthquake engineering research and teaching.”
The awards committee also noted the particular importance of his research that resulted in the first set of vulnerability models for different types of bridges and retrofits.
“I am honored to be mentioned along with some of the legends in the field of lifeline earthquake engineering,” said DesRoches, who is the Karen and John Huff Chair of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “It is a reflection of the outstanding colleagues and students that I have had the opportunity to work with during my career.”
The Duke award is essentially a lifetime achievement award for the study of earthquake impacts on utilities, roads, bridges, ports and other lifeline infrastructure. ASCE awards only one a year and no one can win it more than once.