A writing team that includes Professor Timothy D. Stark, Jordan Aaron, Oldrich Hungr and Ahmed K. Baghdady has been awarded the 2019 Norman Medal by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), for their paper “Oso, Washington, Landslide of March 22, 2014: Dynamic Analysis.” This prestigious award was established in 1872 and is given annually in recognition of a technical paper that “makes a contribution to either practical or research aspects of engineering disciplines.” The award will be presented during ASCE's Annual Convention in October, 2019.
The team's research – funded by a Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Rapid Response Grant – is helping with future landslide detection, prediction, accurate estimation of slide runout distances, and land-use policies to protect humans and property from natural hazards, such as landslides, flooding and excessive rainfall.
A member of the CEE at Illinois faculty since 1991, Stark has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in geotechnical engineering, foundation engineering, geosynthetics, and static and seismic slope stability. His research interests include Static and Seismic Stability of Natural and Man-Made Slopes, compacted embankments for water and transportation applications, geosynthetics, and railway geotechnics.
Stark's co-authors were Jordan Aaron, Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Earth Sciences at ETH Zurich, Switzerland; Oldrich Hungr (deceased), Professor of Ocean and Earth Sciences at the University of British Columbia; and Ahmed K. Baghdady, Technical Project Manager with Langan Engineering in Parsippany, N.J. Baghdady was formerly a doctoral student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.