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Geotechnical News • December 2012
www.geotechnicalnews.com
GEO-INSTITUTE NEWS
Faculty could teach from it while stu-
dents follow along on their PC using
the e-book version. The PowerPoint
CD is not encrypted to make modifica-
tions possible.
To order your free CD, with no added
shipping cost, send your name and
address to Bob Koerner at
robert.
koerner@coe.drexel.edu
with your
complete mailing address.
ISSMGE News
A USUCGER in-memoriam
Professor Chih-Kang Shen, 79, passed
away on July 17 2012 in Davis,
CA. He will be remembered for his
integrity, kindness, scholarship, and
forward-thinking leadership.
Shen earned his B.S, M.S. and Ph.D
degrees in 1956, 1960, and 1965 from
the National Taiwan University, the
University of New Hampshire and the
University of California at Berkeley,
respectively, all in Civil Engineer-
ing. He served as a faculty member at
Loyola Marymount University in Los
Angeles prior to joining the Depart-
ment of Civil Engineering at the Uni-
versity of California, Davis in 1967. In
his 24-year career at Davis, he served
as assistant, associate and full profes-
sor, and department chair.
He retired from Davis in 1991 to join
the founding faculty at HKUST and
established the Department of Civil
and Structural Engineering. During
his four-year tenure as the depart-
ment head, he assembled a top-quality
faculty and shaped the department into
a highly visible academic unit envied
by many civil engineering departments
around the world. He retired from
HKUST and returned to his home in
Davis in 1998.
Professor Shen spent most of his
academic years investigating soil
mechanics and foundation engineering
and was the author of many articles
in geotechnical journals and confer-
ence proceedings. He made important
contributions in soil characterization
and improvement, pavement analysis
and design, soil nailing and reinforced
earth, laboratory testing, constitutive
modeling and numerical analysis, and
to the establishment of major geotech-
nical centrifuge facilities in both Davis
and Hong Kong. His pioneering work
with Kenneth Lee on horizontal move-
ments related to subsidence earned
him the 1970 ASCE Collingwood
Prize.
Shen also made remarkable contri-
butions to professional services. In
Hong Kong specifically, he chaired
the Geotechnical Division of the Hong
Kong Institute of Engineers (HKIE)
and served as a consultant to Califor-
nia’s Departments of Transportation
and Water Resources, the U.S. Naval
Civil Engineering Laboratory and
Corp of Engineers, and Geotechnical
Engineering Office of Hong Kong.
News from ISSMGE President,
Jean L. Briaud
The ISSMGE 2013 Terzaghi Orator is
Dr. Suzanne Lacasse, D.Eng., P.E.,
F.ASCE
. Dr. Lacasse has worked in
three difference countries as president,
member of the National Academy of
Engineering, and director. She exem-
plifies the very best in geotechnical
engineering and we are very excited
that she has accepted this invitation.
Do you know...
Why the 12th Baltic Sea Geotechnical
Conference, “Infrastructure in the
Baltic Sea Region” held in Rostock,
Germany this Spring was the most
important geotechnical event for the
Baltic Sea Region?
Why global sustainability is the great-
est long-term challenge of our time?
Why more than 70 young geotechni-
cal engineers from over 40 countries
attended the 2ndInternational Young