News

May 9, 2025 | Krutch Theater, UC Berkeley – Clark Kerr Campus   UC Berkeley and SFGI ASCE are pleased to announce the 43rd Annual Geosystems Engineering Distinguished Lecture Series, an event that holds special significance this year as it also marks the retirement of Professor Nicholas Sitar from UC Berkeley. Professor Sitar, a highly esteemed senior member of the GeoSystems group, has made substantial contributions to the field of ...

The 63rd Rankine Lecture – From Geo-monitor to Geo-adapt: leveraging distributed sensing and data analytics for performance-based design, construction, and maintenance, will be delivered by Prof. Kenichi Soga this Wednesday! Don't miss out! The Rankine Lecture is the most prestigious of the invited lectures in geotechnics in the United Kingdom, hosted by the  British Geotechnical Asociation. It commemorates William John Macquorn ...

  Richard E. Goodman, a UC Berkeley faculty member from 1964 to 1994, passed away at the age of 90 in Anchorage, Alaska. He received his Ph.D. degree in Engineering Science (Geological Engineering) from the University of California, Berkeley where he studied as a Ford Foundation Fellow from 1960 to 1963. He received his B.S. (1955) degree in Geology and M.S. (1958) in Civil Engineering and Economic Geology, both from Cornell University. H ...

Prof. Dimitrios Zekkos will deliver a State of the Art talk on "Autonomous characterization of full-scale field response of Municipal Solid Waste" at the Geofrontiers conference. The talk will describe the opportunities for better insights into the full-scale response of Municipal Solid Waste in landfills by incorporating autonomy. The talk will include specific examples of applications related to settlement behavior and methane emissions. T ...

The Geosystems faculty at UC Berkeley in collaboration with Prof. Russel Green from Virginia Tech, Prof. Chris Baxter from the University of Rhode Island and members of Prof. Mitchell's family, co-hosted a Memorial event for Prof. James K. Mitchell on January 24th, 2025 at the Clark Kerr campus in Berkeley. The full-day event was attended by more than 150 participants and included presentations by several former PhD students of Prof. Mitc ...

The UC Berkeley Geosystems Consortium just published its 2024-2025 booklet with this year's Geosystems graduate student resumes. These are students who are graduating from the Geosystems program of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. Participation in the booklet was optional among graduating PhD and Masters students. The booklet is one of the initiatives of the Geosystems Consortium and aims to better lin ...

Prof. Jonathan Bray and Prof. Adda Athanasopoulos-Zekkos are serving as Chair and Secretary, respectively, of the Technical Committee (TC) 203 "Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering and Associated Problems" of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE). The ISSMGE is the preeminent international professional body representing the interests and activities of Geotechnical engineers, academics, and contractors. ...

The eighth annual UC Berkeley Geotechnical Engineering Research Symposium was held on November 22, 2024, at the Banatao Auditorium in Sutardja Dai Hall. The symposium showcased current research works in the GeoSystems Engineering group at UC Berkeley and bridged academic and industry communities.   The keynote speakers for the event were four Ph.D. and one postdoc researchers in the GeoSystems Engineering program. They p ...

Prof. Adda Athanasopoulos-Zekkos delivered the 32nd Spencer J. Buchanan Lecture on November 1st, 2024 at Texas A&M, in College Station, TX. Her talk was titled: "From miles to inches: Big data frameworks for levee health assessment", and a recording will be made available here. For more on the history of Prof. Buchanan you can click here. ...

The 8th annual UC Berkeley Geotechnical Engineering Research Symposium will be held on Friday, November 22, 2024, from 1-5 pm at the Banatao Auditorium in Sutardja Dai Hall on the UC Berkeley Campus. The symposium features the research conducted by current Ph.D. students and Research Associates in the GeoSystems Group at UC Berkeley through inspiring keynotes and poster presentations. Please note this date on your calendar and share it with ...

Dimitrios Zekkos was selected as the 21st Jennings Memorial Lecturer by the Geotechnical Division of the South African Institute of Civil Engineers.  The Jennings lecture is the annual honorary lecture series of the Geotechnical Engineering Division, where one international speaker is invited to give a lecture in several places in the country. Dimitrios lecture will be on the “Fundamentals of dynamic properties of soils and testing” and ...

We are pleased to announce the Professor James K. Mitchell Memorial Event to be held on January 24, 2025, at the Clark Kerr Campus, Berkeley. This special event will honor the life, legacy, and significant contributions of Professor James K. Mitchell as an Educator, Researcher, Leader, and Mentor at UC Berkeley and Virginia Tech. The event will feature presentations from Professor Mitchell's former students, showcasing his profound impact on t ...

Prof. Adda Athanasopoulos-Zekkos is a coPI on a Interdisciplinary Climate and Equity Seed Grant, that will focus on developing new methods for accurately integrating equity in flood risk management. Dr. Anna Serra-Llobet is the PI and brings expertise in flood risk management policies, environmental planning, floods after fire, residual risk of extreme floods, and nature-based solutions for flood risk management. The Seed Grant award ...

Dear Colleagues, We hope you're doing well. This is a friendly reminder to submit your abstract and register for the 15th Annual MPM Workshop hosted at the University of California, Berkeley, on September 5th-6th, 2024. Call for Abstracts: We invite you to submit an abstract for consideration for oral presentation at our event. This is an excellent opportunity to showcase and share your latest research findings and contribute to advancin ...

Tomas Renato Argandona, a dedicated Geosystems MSc student at UC Berkeley, recently helped his team to victory in an intense frisbee competition of 12 teams. Facing difficult opponents and tense moments, Tomas and his team emerged triumphant, marking a memorable achievement in their journey. His team, called Beverly Eagles, invited Tomas to join before the season started, and after a couple of weeks, Tomas  ...

Dr. Youngseok Jo, a Post-doctoral researcher working with Prof. Dimitrios Zekkos, has been selected as a recipient of the CITRIS Climate Innovation Fellowship program. This CITRIS award is highly competitive and only 9 awardees have been granted among a number of UC Berkeley applicants including undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. As part of this fellowship, Youngseok will explore technology solutions for cli ...

Geosystems PhD candidate Mirna Kassem received the 2024 Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor (OSGI) Award for her exemplary work as a teaching assistant for the Groundwater and Seepage course (CE173) taught by Prof. Nicholas Sitar in the 2023 Fall semester. This UC Berkeley campus award is highly competitive and is granted to students who exemplify pedagogical excellence and are recognized for their abilit ...

SFGI ASCE and UC Berkeley are pleased to present the 42nd Annual Geosystems Engineering Distinguished Lecture Series REGISTER HERE Location: Krutch Theater, UC Berkeley - Clark Kerr Campus Program 12:30 - 1:00 pm Check-In, Krutch Theater lobby 1:00 - 1:10 pm Welcome and Recognition of Sponsors  1:10 - 2:20 pm “Soil mechanics for large deformation modeling”, Prof. Kenichi Soga, UC Berkeley ...

A UC Berkeley engineering research team, led by Professor Kenichi Soga, with the support of Geosystems Faculty, Professor Jonathan Bray, and Professor Dimitrios Zekkos, was recently granted $3 million by the California Energy Commission to enhance the seismic risk assessment of natural gas storage and pipeline infrastructure. Over a 3 year period, the team will employ a novel blend of remote and embedded sensing technology alongside advanced ...

On March 13, 2024, the British Geotechnical Association (BGA) announced that our very own Professor Kenichi Soga will be delivering the 63rd Rankine Lecture in March 2025 at Imperial College London. The Rankine Lecture is a UK-based lecture series and is considered as one of the most prestigious invited lectures in the field of geotechnics. You can delve deeper into this exciting news by reading an insightful interview with Kenichi, recently p ...

The Geosystems group at UC Berkeley is excited to circulate this new career opportunity for an R&D Engineer 3 to support our laboratory testing and field testing capabilities of the Geotechnical Engineering Testing Laboratories, the Geosystems Sensing and Analytics Laboratory (GeoSAL) and the large-scale testing of our Center for Smart Infrastructure (CSI). A detailed description of the position is provided here. If you are aware of i ...

We want to congratulate Professor Norman A. Abrahamson for achieving the prestigious 2024 Harry Fielding Reid Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the Seismological Society of America (SSA). Professor Abrahamson, set to be honored during the 2024 SSA Annual Meeting, is globally recognized for expertise in seismic hazard assessment (PSHA). His contributions span groundbreaking methodologies, advancements in ground-motion modeling for various ea ...

Our alumnus Kenneth Johnson sent this photo of several alumni who graduated over the last decades, who are working on a a Caltrans Project on Last Chance Grade. From L to R: Cole Christiansen Scott Anderson Matt Fowler Warren Newcomen Ken Johnson Emma OHara Lianna Winkler-Prins Steve Klein Thank you Ken! Please keep sending us news of our alumni!  Go GeoBears!  ...

Professor Dimitrios Zekkos will present the 14th Annual GZA Lecture hosted by the ASCE Metropolitan Section Geo-Institute of ASCE on the topic:  “Seismic Performance of Ports during the 2014 Cephalonia Earthquake: reconnaissance, field testing and numerical modeling"  The lecture will be held virtually on Thursday, February 15, 2024, at 6:00pm ET with 1 PDH offered. More information can be found here. You can regist ...

The UC Berkeley Geosystems program of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering published its 2024 booklet with this year's Geosystems graduate student resumes. Participation in the booklet was optional among graduating PhD and Masters students. The booklet is one of the initiatives of the Geosystems program to better link its graduate students with the industry, and specifically its corporate partners. To join the Geosystems ...

Prof. Adda Athanasopoulos-Zekkos was a guest at The Geotechnical Engineering Podcast (TGEP) hosted by Jared Green and supported by the Engineering Management Institute.  Prof. Athanasopoulos-Zekkos covered several topics, including the critical issues surrounding the liquefaction of gravelly soils and the importance of equity in earthquake resilience as well as what inspired her to become a geotechnical engineer! You can listen at ...

James (Jim) K. Mitchell passed away peacefully at home in Massachusetts on December 17, 2023. Born in Manchester, N.H., on April 19, 1930, Jim received a B.C.E. degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1951, an S.M. degree from MIT in 1953, and an Sc.D. from MIT in 1956. He worked as a soil engineer at the U.S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station (now part of ERDC) in Vicksburg, Miss., in 1955 and spent 1956-1958 as an officer in th ...

The seventh annual UC Berkeley Geotechnical Engineering Research Symposium was held on November 17, 2023, at the Banatao Auditorium in Sutardja Dai Hall. The symposium showcased current research works in the GeoSystems Engineering group at UC Berkeley and bridged academic and industry communities.   The keynote speakers for the event were five Ph.D. researchers in the GeoSystems Engineering program. They presented their resea ...

The 7th annual UC Berkeley Geotechnical Engineering Research Symposium will be held on Friday, November 17, 2023, from 1-5 pm at the Banatao Auditorium in Sutardja Dai Hall on the UC Berkeley Campus. The symposium features the research conducted by current Ph.D. students and Research Associates in the GeoSystems Group at UC Berkeley through inspiring keynotes and poster presentations. Please register for the symposium he ...

The Geosystems program is pleased to announce that BGC Engineering has joined the program's Corporate Partnership at the Blue level. Through this partnership, BGC and UC Berkeley will establish strong ties and BGC will support graduate students in the Geosystems group. Matt Lato of BGC is the leading liaison along with UC Berkeley alumnus Scott Anderson. They will participate in a number of activities including the Industry Leadership Summit, ...

As part of our new monthly webinar series on "The Future of Infrastructure, Today!" we are pleased to announce the following webinar: Title: Introducing the Berkeley Center for Smart Infrastructure Speaker: Kenichi Soga, Professor, UC Berkeley, Director of the Center for Smart Infrastructure Registration Link Webinar leaflet Description: Many infrastructure assets are designed for a service life of 100 years, even with deteriora ...

The 7th annual UC Berkeley Geotechnical Engineering Research Symposium will be held on Friday, November 17, 2023, from 1-5 pm at the Banatao Auditorium in Sutardja Dai Hall on the UC Berkeley Campus. The symposium features the research conducted by current Ph.D. students and Research Associates in the GeoSystems Group at UC Berkeley through inspiring keynotes and poster presentations. Please note this date on your calendar an ...

PhD student Weibing Gong completed his doctoral thesis in August and has already joined the Faculty of the Geosciences, Geological and Petroleum Engineering Department at Missouri Science and Technology as an Assistant Professor. Weibing's thesis was on "A Numerical Model for Regional-Scale Back-Calculation and Prediction of Earthquake-Induced Landslides" under the supervision of Professor Dimitrios Zekkos and Prof. Marin Clark from the Univ ...

Dr. Youngseok Jo, a post-doctoral researcher working with Prof. Dimitrios Zekkos has been awarded a prestigious fellowship in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields from South Korea, funded by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF). The Fellowship is awarded to only 50 postdocs annually nationwide.  Youngseok will continue his work at UC Berkeley Geosystems on developing and deploying next genera ...

Dr. Jongchan Kim, a post doctoral researcher working with Prof. Adda Athanasopoulos-Zekkos and Prof. Dimitrios Zekkos has accepted a faculty position at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology's Civil & Environmental Engineering Department. Dr. Kim has been working on the characterization of gravelly soils using the large size cyclic simple shear device at UC Berkeley and has made important contributions towards improvi ...

On May 9, 2023, Nick Sitar gave the 25th Sowers Lecture entitled: Geology Runs Through It:  On the Role of Depositional Environment and Fabric in the Mechanical Behavior of Granular Sediments. The Sowers Lecture is a part of the annual Sowers Symposium, held in honor of the memory of Professor George F. Sowers, and sponsored by the Georgia Section ASCE Geo-Institute Chapter and the Georgia Institute of T ...

A GEER report was just published on Hurricane Ida. The report presents results from the reconnaissance efforts of a large team of professionals from academia, industry and the US Army Corps of Engineers following Hurricane Ida that made landfall on August 29, 2021 at the coast of Southern Louisiana. This event brought approximately 13ft of storm surge and resulted in substantial flooding of several areas in Southern Louisiana, as well a ...

SFGI ASCE and UC Berkeley are pleased to present the 41st Annual Geosystems Engineering Distinguished Lecture Series   Location: Krutch Theater, UC Berkeley - Clark Kerr Campus Program 12:30 - 1:00 pm : Check-In, Krutch Theater lobby 1:00 - 1:10 pm: Welcome and Recognition of Sponsors 1:10 - 2:20 pm “Recent advances on liquefaction of gravelly soils based on field performance, field testing and numerical ...

UC Berkeley Geosystems Group was happy to have Dr. Vince Cronin give a Jahns Lecture, "How can engineering geology help society meet the challenge of a changing climate?" on April 17, 2023. Emma (UC Berkeley Geosystems Alum), Dr. Vince Cronin (Jahn’s Lecturer), and Kate (Chair of San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of Association of Environmental & Engineering Geologists) from left to right ...

On May 8-9 2023, UC Berkeley Faculty and colleagues will be offering again the popular 2-day short course on "New Technologies for Geotechnical Infrastructure Sensing and Monitoring." The course was offered the last two years and was very well received with a total of 334 participants from 34 US States and 42 countries.  You can review the participants' feedback about the course here. The course will provide a review of som ...

Professor Kenichi Soga has been inducted into the National Academy of Engineering (NAE)! Soga was elected for his achievements in geomechanics and computational modeling, as well as underground infrastructure simulation and monitoring. NAE membership is considered one of the highest professional distinctions given to an engineer. NAE membership honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to pioneering new and deve ...

The San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the Association of Environmental & Engineering Geologists (AEG) is pleased to host Jahns Lecture on Monday, April 17, 12– 1 PM at 406 Davis Hall on the UC Berkeley Campus. Registration: Lunch and refreshments included! Register Here (RSVP before Sunday) Topic: How can engineering geology help society meet the challenge of a changing climate? Dr. Vince Cronin, AEG Jahn’s Lecturer, and Pr ...

The UC Berkeley Geosystems program of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering published its 2023 booklet with this year's Geosystems graduate student resumes. Participation to the booklet was optional among graduating Masters students. This is the second time that the program is putting together such a booklet. The booklet is one of the new initiatives of the Geosystems program to better link its graduate students with ...

As a new activity by the Center for Smart Infrastructure (CSI), Professor Kenichi Soga, Won-jun Cha, Shih-Hung Chiu, and East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) subject-matter experts, led by Clifford Chan (General Manager) and David Katzev, offered a new undergraduate course for Fall 2022: Water & Wastewater Systems Design and Operation (CE112). The course covers a variety of topics in the water industry, including design of water t ...

The SRG’s recent work in fiber optic installation and measurement is featured in an article posted by The Home Energy Efficiency Team (HEET). Members of the SRG, Yaobin and Sumeet, attached a fiber optic cable to the pipes in each borehole to measure temperature. This measured data results in a more accurate understanding of the conductivity of the bedrock to help inform Eversource’s design (Eversource is a business & resi ...

The sixth annual UC Berkeley Geotechnical Engineering Research Symposium was held on November 18, 2022, at the Banatao Auditorium in Sutardja Dai Hall. The symposium showcased current research works in the GeoSystems Engineering group at UC Berkeley and bridged academic and industry communities.   The keynote speakers for the event were four Ph.D. and postdoctoral researchers in the GeoSystems Engineering program. They presented their ...

PhD students Drew Gomberg and Mirna Kassem, advised by Professor Dimitrios Zekkos, just returned from an expedition in Puerto Rico as part of a GEER (Geotechnical Extreme Event Reconnaissance) deployment. The one-week field deployment aimed to collect data about precipitation-induced landslides caused by the recent 2022 Hurricane Fiona. This was in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Puerto Rico (led by Prof. Alesa ...

Dr. Yong Liang (Postdoctoral researcher), Bodhinanda Chandra (PhD candidate), and Joel Given (PhD student) recently traveled to University of Texas, Austin to represent Prof. Kenichi Soga’s Computational Geomechanics research team at this year’s Material Point Method (MPM) Workshop.  The workshop provides an opportunity for researchers to present and discuss on-going work related to theoretical and computational developments in the MPM. A ...

Early on Friday, September 30, 2022, the GeoSystems Master students in CE 281 Engineering Geology left for the Sierra Nevada Foothills. The first stop of the trip was Auburn Dam. The students were able to see the foundation for Auburn Dam, which was never built and learned about the surrounding geology. The second stop of the trip was another dam, Spaulding Dam. PG&E hosted the class and took the students to the spillway of the dam in order t ...

The 6th annual Geotechnical Engineering Research Symposium will be held on Friday, November 18, 2022, from 1-5 pm at the Banatao Auditorium in Sutardja Dai Hall on the UC Berkeley Campus. The symposium highlights the research conducted by current Ph.D. students and Research Associates at UC Berkeley in the GeoSystems Group through spotlight presentations and poster presentations. To register, please follow this link: Register Here & ...

  Lookig Weibing Gong presenting results of a regional co-seismic landslide model for the 2020 Puerto Rico earthquake.    Professor Dimitrios Zekkos and his group, including PhD students Weibing Gong, Parker Blunts, and Mirna Kassem, participated in an expedition in Puerto Rico in May 2022. The expedition included a one-week landslide hazard workshop with colleagues from NASA, USGS, the University of ...

The GeoSystems Master Students enrolled in CE 281 Engineering Geology travelled with the CE 112 Water and Wastewater Systems Design and Operations students to Pardee Dam and Camanche Dam. The students were joined by Clifford Chan of EBMUD who explained the operation of Pardee Dam and Camanche Dam. Pardee Dam is a cold water dam and provides most of the drinking water to the Bay Area. The students were taken on a tour of the inside of Pard ...

With a month into the term, the GeoSystems Master students who are enrolled in CE 281 Engineering Geology took their first field trip of the semester. The class visited a total of six different sites to learn about geology and its role in engineering. The first stop of the trip was at Treasure Island where the students learned about the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake and how there were two seismograph stations a mile apart, one on rock and the ot ...

The Geosystems program had a Welcome to the Term Potluck on September 16, 2022. It was an excellent time for GeoSystems members to gather together and have some fantastic homemade foods. We are looking forward to many more memories to come in the rest of the semester!   ...

On Aug 19, 2022, Geo-Legend Prof. Harry B. Seed would have turned 100 years old. The Geo-Institute and USUCGER co-sponsored a special event to help us look back at his life and career, and examine the legacy he left for today's geotechnical engineers. USUCGER President Adda Athanasopoulos-Zekkos hosted a panel of Professor Seed's friends and colleagues. The panel comprised of UC Berkeley Alumni: Dr. Les Harder of HDR, Dr. Faiz Makdisi of Ganne ...

Professor Dimitrios Zekkos has been invited to give a "Powerful Informative Talk", known in geotechnical engineering as "PIT", at the upcoming 20th International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering that is being held this week at Sydney, Australia May 1st to May 5th 2022. Zekkos' talk is on "Autonomy Revolutionizing Geotechnical Practice" and describes how new technologies, and sensors, on satellites, UAVs and wireless ...

SFGI ASCE and UC Berkeley are pleased to present the 40th Annual Geosystems Engineering Distinguished Lecture Series Friday May 13th 2022 Location: Krutch Theater, UC Berkeley - Clark Kerr Campus   Registration closes May 5th, 2022 REGISTER HERE!   The Program is as follows: 12:30 - 1:00 pm Check-In, Krutch theater loby  1:00 - 1:10 pm Welcome, Recognition of Sponsors and "The State ...

Brittany Russo, a PhD student in the Geosystems program advised by Prof. Adda Athanasopoulos-Zekkos, was one of the selected finalists for the USSD scholarships awarded every year during the Annual USSD conference. Brittany got the second place scholarship following the presentation of her work on "Non-invasive levee health monitoring using data fusion and machine learning for infrastructure resiliency against climate change" during thi ...

Geosystems graduate students Emma O'Hara (MS student) and Drew Gomberg (PhD student) both received the 2022 Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor (OGSI) Award for their exemplary work as teaching assistants in the Fall semester.  These UC Berkeley Campus Awards are highly competitive and recognize students who show exemplary pedagogical excellence and create an inclusive learning environment that promotes critical thinking. Congratul ...

The Geosystems program and the UC Berkeley’s Center for Smart Infrastructure are excited to announce that they acquired Cornell University's soil-pipeline-fault rupture interaction testing apparatus. The apparatus was originally part of Cornell University's NEES facility and has for many years contributed immensely in gaining insights on the seismic resilience of pipelines through full-scale testing. Prof. Tom O' Rourke, Professor Emeri ...

Prof. Kenichi Soga is one of the selected State-of-the-Art speakers in the upcoming ASCE Geo-Institute Geocongress 2022 on State of the Art and Practice in Geotechnical Engineering. The conference is taking place in Charlotte, North Carolina on March 20-23 2022.    ...

The American Society of Civil Engineers has awarded its 2022 H. Bolton Seed Medal to Jonathan D. Bray, Professor and Faculty Chair in Earthquake Engineering Excellence in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the College of Engineering at University of California, Berkeley. The H. Bolton Seed Medal recognizes outstanding contributions to teaching, research, and/or practice in geotechnical engineering.  Bray will be reco ...

Prof. Kenichi Soga and the newly established Center of Smart Infrastructure at UC Berkeley is featured in the CSIC Smart Infrastructure Blog of the University of Cambridge. Partnering with the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD), the new center is hope to provide a strategic opportunity to collaborate between industry and academics in the use of remote sensors, data analytics, and artificial intelligence tools, as well as other ...

In ASCE's Geo-Extreme conference that took place on November 7-10 2021 in Savannah, Georgia, Prof. Dimitrios Zekkos gave a keynote lecture on the Highway CA-1 failure at Rat Creek in the area of Big Sur that failed on January 28 2021. Zekkos co-led with alumni Prof. Tim Stark and Phil Gregory the reconnaissance mission under the Auspices of the Embankments, Slopes and Dams Technical Committee of the ASCE Geo-Institute. Several Cal st ...

The UC Berkeley Geosystems program of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering published a booklet with this year's geotechnical engineering graduate student resumes.  Participation to the booklet was optional among graduating Masters students, and nearly 30 of them are included in it. This is the first time that the program is putting together such a booklet.  The booklet is one of the new initiative ...

The UC Berkeley Geotechnical family grieves the loss and celebrates the life of Clarence Chan, who passed away peacefully at his home in San Francisco, on August 7, 2021 at the age of 91, surrounded and supported by his remarkable family.  Clarence was a key contributor to the Geotechnical Engineering Program’s rise to prominence from the mid-1950s through his retirement from the University in 1992.   His friendly nature and quiet ...

The 5th annual UC Berkeley Geotechnical Engineering Symposium was held on November 12, 2021, at the Banatao Auditorium in Sutardja Dai Hall. The annual symposium was organized by the GeoEngineering Graduate Student Association at UC Berkeley and hosted by Brittany Russo, a Ph.D. student working with Professor Adda Athanasopoulos-Zekkos. There were 143 registered participants for the event across academia and industry, making it the largest i ...

Caption: UAV image of Nordhoff Ridge, CA study location.   In August 2021, a UC Berkeley GeoSystems Team consisting of Professor Dimitrios Zekkos, Ph.D. student Brittany Russo, and Ph.D. student Parker Blunts traveled to the Topatopa Mountains in the Transverse Mountains of Southern California for fieldwork. The work is part of an ongoing project funded by the National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program (NEHRP). This work wa ...

The Geosystems program is excited to share the news that UC Berkeley and the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) are teaming up to launch a new research and innovation center that will apply cutting-edge technology to address infrastructure challenges our communities face due to climate change, aging systems and natural hazards. The new Center for Smart Infrastructure, which is led by Prof. Kenichi Soga with the support of Faculty from ...

Prof. Dimitrios Zekkos was a keynote speaker at the Third International Symposium on Coupled Phenomena in Environmental Geotechnics, an international event organized by the Technical Committee 215 on Environmental Geotechnics of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering.  The conference is held every four years, and was going to be hosted in person in Kyoto, Japan. Due to COVID it was postpon ...

The 5th annual Geotechnical Engineering Research Symposium will be held on Friday, November 12, 2021 from 1-5 pm in Banatao Auditorium, Sutardja Dai Hall.  The symposium highlights the research conducted by current PhD students and Research Associates at UC Berkeley in the GeoSystems Group through spotlight presentations and poster presentations. To register, please follow this link: Register Here Registration deadline is November 7 ...

Students from the graduate class of Geosystems Program taking the CE281 "Engineering Geology" course enjoyed a beautiful autumn weekend studying the active Tahoe-Sierra Fault Zone, Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe, CA, below.  The three-day camping-field trip was led by Professor Robert Kayen.  The class visited a number of normal faults that distribute strain across the boundary separating the Sierra Nevada Moun ...

Prof. Kenichi Soga and Prof. Dimitrios Zekkos are the main speakers in the upcoming event organized by the Committee on Geological and Geotechnical Engineering (COGGE) of the National Academies on Multi-Scale Monitoring for Improved Infrastructure Safety, Resilience, Service Life. The event will explore ways in which new monitoring and data management technologies are making it possible to expand how we think about monitoring, and ho ...

Meera Kota, an MS student in the Geosystems Graduate Program, has been awarded the 2021 West Coast Chapter Scholarship by the International Association of Foundation Drilling (ADSC), through its Industry Advancement Fund.  ADSC-IAFD is a construction trade association dedicated to the deep foundations industry. Their focus is on drilled shaft, anchored earth retention, and micropile technologies. They are represented by specialt ...

Students are having fun (and also learning) during the CE170A Infrastructure Sensing and Modeling class, taught by Professor Kenichi Soga, Professor Dimitrios Zekkos, Professor Robert Kayen, Dr. Bingyu Zhao, and Renjie Wu as GSI. As a part of the course module, three aluminum model bridges are designed, built, and tested where various sensing technologies are applied during the test: Linear Variable Differential ...

Geosystems Faculty, Prof. Dimitrios Zekkos, Prof. Nick Sitar, and Prof. Rob Kayen were awarded a grant with the goal to incorporate Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) throughout the undergraduate and graduate CEE curriculum. The team will leverage VR and MR to (a) introduce students to ongoing research projects related to disaster response and engineering; (b) engage them on the course material covered; (c) conduct “hands-on” measure ...

Following the June 24th partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been conducting a full investigation into what caused the tragic event. As part of the investigation, Professor Rob Kayen and PhD student Parker Blunts traveled to the site this summer to collect Lidar data and Structure-from-Motion imagery. At Surfside, Ka ...

Prof. Adda Athanasopoulos-Zekkos joined CNN's John Vause on his show last week to talk about the impact of climate change and the need for continued investment towards our infrastructure.  For more information read here, and to access the full interview click here. ...

The second delivery of the short course on “New Technologies for Geo-Infrastructure Sensing and Monitoring” was held remotely on May 20-21 2021 and was a tremendous success. Similar to the original version that was held in January 2021, the short course had more than 100 participants worldwide. The short course also provided PDH hours for interested participants and included updated content based on feedback received by the participants. Mor ...

Two of our incoming Geosystems MS students, Meera Kota and Ethan Ross, have been awarded scholarships from the Deep Foundations Institute's Educational Trust. Meera received the 2021 Francis Gularte Scholarship and Ethan received the 2021 DFI Education Trust General Scholarship.  Congratulations Meera and Ethan!!!  More information can be found here. ...

A GEER report was just published on the M6.4 earthquake in Petrinja, Croatia. The report presents results from the reconnaissance efforts of a large team of professionals from both the US and Croatia, following the earthquake in Petrinja on December 29, 2020. The report includes information on the tectonic setting of the area, the geology and geomorphology as well as the soil characteristics of the relevant and affected sites. It also presents th ...

ASCE just published a reconnaissance report on the failures of the Edenville and Sanford Dams that occurred on May 19 2020 in Michigan. The report presents the results of an investigation immediately after the failure using a range of techniques, includes geophysics, and optical and infrared UAV-based surveys. Work conducted at Cal also involved the digital image analysis of the video that captured the moment of the failure of Edenville dam, a de ...

The Geosystems Engineering master's class that graduated in 2020 held a reunion at Ohlone Park in Berkeley to celebrate their graduation from the program. Due to COVID-19, the graduation was held virtually in Spring 2020 and many of the students were not able to say goodbye in person. A reunion was held a year later to distribute the UC Berkeley Geosystems rocks and to reconnect.   Pictured left to right Back row: Professor Kenichi ...

The research done by the Soga Research Group on the application of AI and ML for tunneling is highlighted by Sixense Group. In brief, Dayu Apoji, a Ph.D. researcher in SRG, is trying to build “a brain” for tunnel boring machines (TBM) using machine learning algorithms so that this giant machine can make perception from enormous tunneling data (both from the machine sensors and ground instruments) and assist TBM operators and t ...

A team from the Soga Research Group led by Ph.D. candidate Peter Hubbard is working with a team from Malcolm Drilling led by Peter Faust to assess the performance of working platforms in San Francisco when subject to large loads from drilling rigs using distributed fiber optic sensors (DFOS). A working platform is a layer of material that is placed on top of the existing soil to allow heavy construction equipment to perform their tasks ...

The California Energy Commission has invested resources in finding innovative ways to monitor future offshore wind infrastructure and its impacts on the environment. A project led by LBNL is looking at if distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS), and in particular distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) can be used to both monitor the structural components of these turbines and detect cetaceans that may enter the perimeter of these future offshore wind ...

The Spring 2021 issue of Berkeley Engineer magazine features Professor Kenichi Soga’s pioneering work in the field of distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS). Read more, here. ...

Students of the CE176 course on Geoenvironmental Engineering (and Environmental Geotechnics), an upper level undergraduate course, worked this Spring semester in teams of 2-3 on a project. This provided students the opportunity to select a geoenvironmental topic that was of interest and learn more about it. The project, along with a presentation to their classmate next week, represents only one third of their grade. Instead of submitting thei ...

SFGI ASCE and UC Berkeley are pleased to present the 39th Annual UC Berkeley Geosystems Engineering Distinguished Lecture Series   This year’s event will take place online on May 7th at 10:00am-2:00pm PST and will feature the following three lectures and a panel discussion:   Prof. Laurie Baise from Tufts University: “Observations and Characterization of Complexity in Site Response”   Prof. Dimitrios Zekkos from ...

Caption: Students and Faculty performing seismic measurements as part of classwork   The Geosystems program has recently expanded its capabilities in Geophysics. Just last year, with the addition of Prof. Robert Kayen of the USGS, the Geosystems group has expanded its seismic geophysics capabilities that now includes capabilities in Microtremor Array Methods (Spatial Autocorrelation [SPAC] and frequency-wavenumber [ ...

The failure of Highway 1 at Rat Creek (Photo from Caltrans) UC Berkeley Geosystems program faculty and students are participating in a reconnaissance mission under the Auspices of the ASCE Geo-Institute Technical Committee of Embankments, Dams and Slopes investigating the January 28 2021 Highway 1 failure. Prof. Dimitrios Zekkos co-leads the investigation with UCB alumnus Prof. Tim Stark from UIUC and UCB Alumnus and President of Cal Engineeri ...

In a video released this April, alumni reminisce about the impact of the UC Berkeley Geosystems program on their life. The video  included alumni with diverse backgrounds and experiences spanning all the decades of the program (70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, and 10s).  The video featured Kenneth Johnson (MS 1982, 1987), Senior Technical Principal Engineer, WSP, Thaleia Travasarou (MS 1998, PhD 2003), Manager, Land GeoConsulting Americas, Fugro, ...

the Geosystems Faculty and colleagues, are offering on May 20-21 2021 the short course ""New Technologies for Geotechnical Infrastructure Sensing and Monitoring". The course was offered first in January 2021, was very well received and got fully booked rather quickly. You can review the participants' feedback about the course here.  The May course will further improve on the January course and  provide a review of some ...

On March 19 2021, Geosystems MS students were able to meet in person and perform field work near Bel Marin Keys  in Novato as part of CE273 “Advanced GeoEngineering Testing and Design” taught by Professor Michael Riemer and GSIs Joel Given and Bodhinanda.Chandra. The optional activity was approved by the campus, subject to special safety precautions, as case counts had declined dramatically since January.  Even the persistent rain co ...

The Geosystems program is pleased to announce that Geosyntec Consultants has upgraded its Corporate Partnership to the Geosystems program at the Gold level. Through this partnership Geosyntec and UC Berkeley will work more closely on a number of initiatives and Geosyntec will support graduate students in the Geosystems group. Geosyntec has a number of UC Berkeley Geosystems alumni among its ranks, starting with its Chairman of the Board,& ...

The Director of the ASCE Geo-Institute Brad Keelor has been hosting a series of interviews titled "Director's cut" to discuss issues related to geotechnical engineeering and beyond. On January 13 in his first take on double-interviews, he hosted Prof. Adda Athanasopoulos-Zekkos and Prof. Dimitrios Zekkos. The conversation spanned from meeting celebrities and favorite Greek food, to geotechnical careers, the Geo-Institute and the future ...

Professor Jonathan D. Bray, Ph.D., P.E., NAE has been appointed as a member of the Seismic Advisory Board for the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA). The Seismic Advisory Board was created as a recommendation of the Governor’s Board of Inquiry following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. Caltrans established the Caltrans Seismic Advisory Board to provide advice on seismic safety ...

The short course on "New Technologies for Geo-Infrastructure Sensing and Monitoring was completed on January 22-23 2021 online and was a huge success!  Participation was capped to 120, due to overwhelming demand. A total of 120 participants from 25 countries, 20 states, 47 companies and 28 universities participated in the course instructed by Zekkos, Soga, Kayen and Johnson. The short course had also a lot of time for ...

PressBanner, a publication in Santa Cruz County featured as a cover story on January 11 2021, PhD student Parker Blunts and his ongoing research on the monitoring of wildfire affected areas in Santa Cruz County. The research, funded by NASA, with the collaboration of USGS, involves repeated deployments of UAVs and with the assistance of Prof. Kayen, Lidar sensors, to create 3D models of the study site in Santa Cruz throughout the first we ...

The bay area has several active seismic faults. In order to supply water for its 1.4 million customers, the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) must maintain pipe infrastructure that cross these hazards. Prof. Kenichi Soga and his team have been working with EBMUD to develop a monitoring system for the most critical pipes in the east bay’s water supply network. Recently, a bending test was conducted at EBMUD’s Oakport stora ...

Distributed fiber optic sensors (DFOS) can be used for a wide variety of applications. Among them, distributed temperature sensing (DTS) uses the physical changes in a fiber core, as observed by probing light pulses, to measure the temperature of the environment surrounding the fiber. This is extremely useful to measure continuous temperature profiles in the subsurface for geothermal exploration. Prof. Kenichi Soga and his team recently instal ...

Figure 1: PhD student Jhih-Rou Huang preparing for calibration testing during the summer of 2020. Jhih-Rou tested mine tailings from South America, as part of project led by Prof. Dimitrios Zekkos     A large diameter (d=300 mm) Cyclic Simple Shear device, or as we call her, LACSI, is operational and actively being used for testing all kinds of large particle soil specimens. Currently tests are being conducted on mine s ...

The Geosystems program is pleased to announce that Geopier Foundation Company, a subsidiary of Tensar Corporation, has joined its Corporate Partnership program at the Blue level. Through this partnership Geopier becomes a closer ally to the program and will support graduate students in the Geosystems group. Kord Wissman, President of Geopier and an alumnus of our program was instrumental in establishing this partnership.  On ...

On January 22-23 2021, the UC Berkeley Faculty of the Geosystems group and collaborators are offering a 2-day short course on "New Technologies for Geotechnical Infrastructure Sensing and Monitoring". The course will  provide a review of some of the latest technologies that are about to, or are already impacting the way we design, maintain, or operate geo-infrastructure and the way we manage risk. Technologies to be discussed are sensor ...

Associate Professor Dimitrios Zekkos led a Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance (GEER) Mission to document damage from Medicane Ianos. Medicane Ianos, a Mediterranean Hurricane, impacted Greece on September 17-20 2020. A total of 31 participants from 6 Universities, 3 governmental organizations and 3 companies participated in the effort. Among them, Parker Blunts , UCB Geosystems PhD student, contributed to the effort by creating 3D mo ...

The 4th GeoSystems Engineering Annual Research Symposium was successfully held on Friday, November 20th, 2020. The event was attended by 112 people, with the proportion between academic and industry/government of about 60:40, and the proportion between the UC Berkeley community and the communities outside of about 50:50. Different from the previous years, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this year the event was held virtually via Zoom.  ...

Adda Athanasopoulos Zekkos was elected this year as President of the United States Universities Council on Geotechnical Education and Research (USUCGER). USUCGER was founded in 1985 to provide advocacy for the continued development and expansion of high quality geotechnical engineering research and education by US academic institutions. Adda will be serving a two year term as President.    You can access USUCGER here ...

Welcome to the new website of the UC Berkeley Geosystems Group in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Here you can find information about ongoing teaching, research and leadership activities of our geo-community, which includes students, researchers, Faculty and our Alumni! If you are an Alumnus/a make sure you sign up to our Alumni list so that you are listed. If you are a visitor of the website and want to hear more fro ...

Dr. Adda Athanasopoulos-Zekkos delivers the 2020 ASCE Met Section Mueser Rutledge Memorial Lecture on November 11 from 6 to 7 pm. Speaking on “Liquefaction of Gravelly Soils and the Impact on Critical Infrastructure.” Her talk was delivered virtually. The 30th Annual lecture is named after past MRCE principals William H. Mueser and Philip C. Rutledge. ...

Current Masters students, Alp Balcay, Edward Vaccaro and Drew Gomberg led the establishment of a new student group, named "Civil Ventures" that aims to promote the next generation of Civil Engineering student startups at University of California, Berkeley. The groups's mission is "to foster an environment where collaboration and creativity can collide, and assist students in becoming entrepreneurial leaders and innovative thinkers while at Ber ...

Kenichi Soga, Dimitrios Zekkos and Robert Kayen established and jointly teach a new upper-level undergraduate course on "Infrastructure Sensing and Modeling." CE170A is taught this semester and introduces students to a wide range of smart cities, monitoring and modeling. It has a transportation modeling module, a 3d modeling module using drones, a Seismic Geophysics module and a wireless sensing module. In addition, the course is bringing speaker ...

In January 2020, the Geosystems group welcomed two new Faculty: Adda Athanasopoulos-Zekkos moved to UCB after 11 years at the University of Michigan. She received her PhD from UC Berkeley in 2008. Her core research and teaching areas lie in geomechanics and geotechnical engineering, with a focus on how infrastructure systems respond to seismic and other natural hazards.  Adda has established herself as an outstanding academic, with strong ...