Geotechnical News • March 2019
31
COMPUTING IN GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING
From the GS Board
engineering very interesting and has
been exploring this ever since.
After graduating from Carleton Uni-
versity in 1978 in physics and geol-
ogy, Gail pursued a Master’s in civil
engineering at Western University,
graduating in 1980. Subsequently,
she worked in consulting with Klohn
Leonoff in Vancouver and Acres
International in Toronto. Returning to
the world of academia, she completed
her Doctorate at Western University in
geophysics in 1993 focusing on seis-
mic hazards. Since then, she has been
a professor at Carleton University and
currently Western University, includ-
ing holding an Industrial Research
Chair in Earth Sciences. She has
continued her consulting as a special-
ist with various geotechnical and civil
engineering firms.
Gail has focused her career on the role
of induced seismicity and exploring a
better understanding of the potential
ground motions from small-to-mod-
erate induced events and their dam-
age potential. She thinks that induced
seismicity could revolutionize our
understanding of earthquakes. One
recent project was the Fundão tail-
ings dam failure in Brazil, where she
investigated the potential role of small
earthquakes in the failure.
Gail has been the President of both
the Seismological Society of America
(2001-2003) and the Canadian Geo-
physical Union (2011-2013). Remark-
ably she was the first women, and first
non-American, to be President of the
Seismological Society of America.
Her most notable honour has been
becoming a Fellow of the Royal Soci-
ety of Canada in 2014.
Heather Cross
Heather Cross initially completed a
Bachelor of Arts at Queen’s University
in 1969. While working at Dalhousie
University she took a hydrogeology
course taught by Dr. John Jones. It is
here that she found her calling and,
shortly after, enrolled in a graduate
program in hydrogeology. She gradu-
ated with her Master’s in 1974 with
her thesis being entitled
“Natural and
Manmade Variations in Groundwater
Flow and Chemistry in the Birch Cave
and Sackville Areas, Halifax County,
Nova Scotia”
.
Heather then worked for the Nova
Scotia Department of Environment in
the late 1970s and early 2000s. Apart
from this she had her own hydrogeol-
ogy consulting firm in Halifax and
worked all over Nova Scotia conduct-
ing water quality and quantity investi-
gations and assessments. Heather also
taught part-time at Dalhousie Univer-
sity in the Earth Sciences and Civil
Engineering departments, served on
the Program Advisory Committee of
the Nova Scotia Community College
Water Resources Technology Program,
and assisted the Nova Scotia Ground
Water Association (NSGWA) with
contractor training and exams.
Heather has extensively volunteered
with professional organizations,
such as International Association of
Hydrogeologists – Canadian National
Chapter (IAH-CNC), NSGWA,
Groundwater Relief (formerly known
as Hydrogeologists without Bor-
ders), and the US National Ground
Water Association. She also holds
the distinction of being a founding
member of the Association of Profes-
sional Geoscientists of Nova Scotia
(APGNS) holding membership #002.
She has received several awards,
including the Nova Scotia Environ-
mental Award (1983), NSGWA’s W.E.
Brown Founders Award (2001 and
2015), APGNS Excellence in Geosci-
ence Award (2009), and Fellow of
Geoscience Canada (2015).
Glynnis Horel
Glynnis Horel grew up on Salt Spring
Island with a desire to work outdoors.
At the advice of a friend she enrolled
in geological engineering at the Uni-
versity of British Columbia. During
her first-year, she was one of only
four women in the entire engineer-
ing student body of 1,100. Glynnis
found getting summer work could be
challenging as a woman, however, she
found employment as an assistant to a
female mineral exploration geologist
and worked for four months above
the tree line in the Mount Wadding-
ton area of BC. After graduation in
1975, Glynnis spent most of her time
carrying out field work in the North-
west Territories and northern BC.
She received her Master’s in Civil
Engineering-Geotechnical from the
University of Alberta in 1984.
Glynnis has worked as a geotechnical
and geological engineer in consulting,
with government (Yukon Territory)
and crown corporations (BC Railway),
and in private industry (MacMillian
Bloedel). Her career has focused on
geotechnical aspects of road design,
construction and maintenance; terrain
hazards; and geomorphic and hydro-
Heather Cross (front row, right,
courtesy of APGENS, 2014).
Glynnis Horel.
