Blacksburg, VA

December 3, 2013

The Organization of American States awarded Ph.D. candidate Alfonso Rivera a prestigious graduate scholarship for the 2014-2015 academic year.  The OAS Academic Scholarship Program was established in 1958, and grants scholarships every year for pursuit of Master’s Degrees, Doctoral Degrees and Research leading to a degree. The OAS Special Caribbean Scholarships Program (SPECAF), established in 1983, grants scholarships for the last two years of undergraduate studies to citizens and residents of the English-speaking Caribbean OAS Member States. Both programs follow the OAS Manual of Procedures for the Scholarship and Training Program. In addition to these programs the OAS, through its Partnerships Program for Education and Training (PAEC), is able to offer other attractive scholarship opportunities for academic studies with the support of its partner institutions in the Americas and around the world. PAEC is administered in accordance with the provision of the respective corporation agreement and in line with the principles set forth in the OAS Manual of Procedures for the Scholarship and Training Program.

Rivera is currently pursuing his doctoral degree under the supervision of Dr. Guney Olgun and Dr. Thomas L. Brandon in the area of Geotechnical Engineering

Two students working under Dr. Russell Green in the area of geotechnical engineering were recently awarded two prestigious fellowships to perform research overseas.

Mr. Brett Maurer was recently awarded a 2012 National Science Foundation East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes (EAPSI) fellowship. Brett will spend eight weeks (June to August 2012) performing research at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.  His research will focus on the development of a reliable index for evaluating the damage potential of earthquake-induced soil liquefaction. The index will utilize data from the recent series of damaging earthquakes in Christchurch and will facilitate future liquefaction hazard risk evaluations around the world. Brett’s research will be guided by Dr. Misko Cubrinovski, University of Canterbury, and Dr. Russell Green, Virginia Tech.

The NSF EAPSI program provides funding for U.S. graduate students in science and engineering to perform research in Australia, China, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, and Taiwan. The goals of the EAPSI program are to introduce students to East Asia and Pacific science and engineering in the context of a research setting, and to help students initiate scientific relationships that will better enable future collaboration with foreign counterparts. Awardees carry out an eight week research project at host laboratories and cultivate personal relationships with their foreign counterparts. Brett is currently a doctoral student in the Geotechnical Engineering Program at Virginia Tech.

Mr. Christian Olivera was awarded a 2012-2013 Leifur Eiriksson Fellowship by the Leifur Eiriksson Foundation.  The Foundation funds scholars from U.S. universities for graduate research or study at universities in Iceland, and scholars from universities in Iceland to conduct research or study at universities in the United States. Christian will be spending the 2012-2013 academic year performing research at the University of Iceland’s Earthquake Engineering Research Centre (EERC) in Selfoss, Iceland.  His research will focus on the use of H/V spectral ratios in site specific seismic hazard analyses, using data collected from the 2008, M6.3 Olfus earthquake as a case study. Christian will be performing the research under the direction of Dr. Benedikt Halldorsson, EERC, and Dr. Russell Green, Virginia Tech.

The mission of the Leifur Eiriksson Foundation is exclusively for charitable, literary, educational, and scientific purposes and for providing recognition and financial assistance to further scholarly study and research. The Foundation was established in 2001 and is governed by a board of trustees appointed by the Central Bank of Iceland, the Icelandic Government, and the University of Virginia. Recipients are chosen by the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. Up to $25,000 in project costs, including travel to and from the research or study site will be paid on the scholar’s behalf.

Associate Professor Russell A. Green was named a 2012 Visiting Erskine Fellow by the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. As an Erskine Fellow, Dr. Green will spend two months (June – August 2012) at the Department of Civil and Natural Resource Engineering, University of Canterbury, giving a series of lectures. As opposed to previous years where Erskine Fellowships were awarded to academics from a range of disciplines, the 2012 Fellowships were designated for professors whose research focuses on various aspects of earthquake engineering, with the goal of fostering increased collaborations between the Fellows and the faculty at the University of Canterbury. The Erskine Programme is endowed by the 1960 bequest of John Angus Erskine, a former graduate of the University of Canterbury, and enables “distinguished, international academics who are already advanced in learning to visit the University each year for durations of, normally, one to three months.” Dr. Green recently led two National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored teams that performed post-earthquake investigations: the magnitude 7.1 event in September 2010 in Darfield and the magnitude 6.2 event in February 2011 which devastated the city of Christchurch and its environs.

Along with Professors Jonathan Bray, UC Berkeley, and Thomas O’Rourke, Cornell University, Dr. Green is the recipient of NSF RAPID grant to perform additional post-earthquake field studies in Christchurch. During his last trip to New Zealand, Dr. Green testified in front of the Canterbury Royal Earthquake Commission about the findings from the post-earthquake investigations and the rebuilding of Christchurch.

Russell Green, of the Charles E. Via, Jr., Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech, is leading the National Science Foundation-sponsored Geo-engineering Extreme Events Reconnaissance Team as it travels to Christchurch, New Zealand to document the effects of the magnitude 6.3 earthquake that occurred on Feb 22, 2011. The team will focus on documenting geotechnical effects of extreme events as part of the U.S. National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program.

Green, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, is leading the investigation of the earthquake’s geotechnical impacts. Other team members are: John Allen, TRI Environmental, Inc.; Glenn Rix, Georgia Tech; Donald Wells, AMEC Geomatrix; Thomas O’Rourke, Cornell University; Aaron Bradshaw, University of Rhode Island; and Clinton Wood, University of Arkansas.

Green, Allen, and O’Rourke were also on the previous reconnaissance team that investigated the Sept. 4, 2010, magnitude 7.1 Darfield earthquake in New Zealand.

The team members will work in close collaboration with their New Zealand colleagues from the University of Canterbury and the University of Auckland. Additionally, the team is coordinating its efforts with teams organized by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) and the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Technical Committee on Lifeline Earthquake Engineering.

Green spent five years as an earthquake engineer for the U.S. Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board in Washington, D.C., prior to becoming a university professor. Part of his responsibility at the safety board was to perform seismic safety analyses on the nation’s defense nuclear facilities.

Green’s concerns and expertise in earthquake engineering earned him a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2006 valued at more than $400,000. He has used this support the development of procedures for collecting and analyzing data required for assessing the seismic hazard in regions where moderate to large earthquakes would have significant consequences, yet they remain low probability events.

The team members have been in close contact with engineers and scientists already in Christchurch, New Zealand, the site of the earthquake. Most of the team will be arriving in Christchurch on Tuesday, March 1, at which time they will work with their New Zealand colleagues to perform field investigations. The team will be working in the field until March 6, with the initial plan to focus efforts on: building foundation response, liquefaction and other ground failures, performance of bridges and other lifelines, performance of port facilities, and slope failures.

~Lynn Nystrom

J. Michael Duncan, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the Via Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is the 2010 recipient of the G. Brooks Earnest Award and Lecture from the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Cleveland Section. This award is presented annually to an outstanding individual of national and international prominence, and preferably to a member of the civil engineering field.

A member of the National Academy of Engineering, Duncan joined the Virginia Tech community in 1984. His is world-renowned for his contributions to the discipline of geotechnical engineering. His work includes embankment dam engineering, soil shear strength and slope stability, seepage through soils, and finite element analysis for soil structures.

To read the full article, click here:
http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2010/11/110110-engineering-duncan.html