Brett Maurer and Russell Green have been selected to be awarded the 2016 Norman Medal, the oldest and most prestigious award given by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Maurer is a doctoral student in the Geotechnical Engineering Program area in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech; Green is Maurer’s research advisor and a Professor in the Geotechnical Engineering Program area. Maurer and Green are receiving the award for a paper that they wrote in collaboration with Professors Misko Cubrinovski and Brendon Bradley, both at the Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. The paper they co-authored is titled “Evaluation of the Liquefaction Potential Index for Assessing Liquefaction Hazard in Christchurch, New Zealand” which appeared in the July 2014 issue of the ASCE Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering. The paper stems from Maurer’s doctoral research and highlights the fruitful and ongoing collaboration among the authors on the 2010-2011 Canterbury, New Zealand, earthquake sequence. Cubrinovski and Green were co-leads on the NSF/GEER-sponsored post-earthquake reconnaissance studies following the two largest earthquakes in the sequence, which devastated much of Christchurch’s Central Business District and eastern suburbs. The ongoing collaborative research by the co-authors has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), New Zealand Earthquake Commission (EQC), US Geological Survey (USGS), Virginia Tech, and the University of Canterbury.
The Norman Medal was instituted and endowed in 1874 by George H. Norman and is the highest honor granted by the ASCE for a technical paper that “makes a definitive contribution to engineering.” In selecting the paper for this award, the committee particularly noted the “insightful interpretations of field data and understanding of liquefaction potential.” The award will be presented during the ASCE annual during 2016 Annual Convention which will be held in Portland, OR, on September 29 – October 1, 2016.
The Norman Medal adds to the long list of awards received by the authors, to include:
- Maurer: EERI/FEMA Graduate Fellowship in Earthquake Hazard Reduction; 1st place in the 2014 EERI Graduate Student Paper Competition; 1st place in the 2013 & 2014 ASCE Geo-Congress Student Poster Competitions; and Best Student Presentation at the 2014 & 2015 Annual Meetings of the Eastern Section of the Seismological Society of America;
- Green: 2012 & 2016 Erskine Fellowship from the University of Canterbury; NSF Career Award, Virginia Tech Alumni Award for International Research; Virginia Tech College of Engineering Certificate of Teaching Excellence; and the Chi Epsilon James M. Robbins Excellence in Teaching Award;
- Cubrinovski: 2014 Outstanding Paper Award (ASCE, Forensic Engineering Div., J. Performance of Constructed Facilities); 2014 Outstanding Paper Award (EERI, Earthquake Spectra); NZGS Geomechanics Award (2008); ANZ Joint Societies Award (2007), EQC-NZSEE Ivan Skinner Award (2007); and the Director’s Award of Taisei Corporation, Technology Division, Tokyo, Japan;
- Bradley: 2015 EERI Shah Innovation Prize; 2015 TC203 Young Researcher Award; 2015 University of Canterbury Teaching Award; 2014 Shamsher Prakash Foundation Research Award; 2014 Engineering Excellence Awards Young Engineer of the Year; 2013 Royal Society of New Zealand Rutherford Discovery Fellowship; and the 2012 Ivan Skinner EQC award for the advancement of earthquake engineering in NZ.