3/9/2015 Kristina Shidlauski
Written by Kristina Shidlauski
Topics ranging from construction of a new NFL stadium in earthquake-prone California to the creation of a new city in the desert of Saudi Arabia are on the agenda for the 16th Annual Structural Engineering Conference being held on April 7, 2015, at the I Hotel and Conference Center in Champaign, Ill.
“This is a conference for structural engineers by structural engineers,” said CEE Professor and Conference Chair Daniel P. Abrams. “We’ve done this now for fifteen years. The idea is that we bring in practitioners to talk about their projects to other structural engineers.”
The morning session will feature four plenary presentations by industry leaders on some of their recent high visibility projects:
- Jon Magnusson, Senior Principal at Magnusson Klemencic Associates, will speak about Levi's Field in San Francisco, the first new California NFL stadium in 47 years.
- James Pawlikowski, Associate Director at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, will talk about the King Abdullah Financial District, a new 57 million square foot economic center in Riyadh's desert.
- Kevin Western, Engineer Principal Administrator at Minnesota Department of Transportation, will talk about the design and construction of the St. Croix Crossing Extradosed Bridge.
- Peter Irwin, Senior Executive Consultant and Past President of RWDI, will present information about wind engineering of recent landmark tall buildings and long span bridges.
The afternoon sessions offer attendees choices from a variety of topics related to building and bridge structures. New this year is a student symposium being held at the end of the conference by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign student chapter of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute. During the symposium, which is open to all conference participants, students will give technical presentations on their graduate research in earthquake engineering.
Practitioners can receive up to 8 hours of continuing education credits for attending the one-day conference. Students are welcome to attend any or all of the professional sessions at no charge, though advance registration is required. For more information about the conference sessions and registration, visit http://www.conferences.uiuc.edu/structural/index.html.