Geotechnical News • June 2019
19
From the CGS Board
Canadian Legends Series/Les Légendes Canadiennes
Series Introduction/
Introduction de la série
The CGS Heritage Committee, in
conjunction with the CGS Education
Committee, is starting a ‘Canadian
Legends Series’ aimed at documenting
wisdom gained by distinguished Cana-
dian geotechnical professionals; both
from their lives and their professional
careers. The profiles in this series
will be posted in the CGS Virtual
Archives available at
and,
from time to time, will be published
in Geotechnical News. It is hoped that
the series will provide students and
young professionals an opportunity to
learn from some of the best minds in
our field.
Profiles for Evert Hoek, Suzanne
Lacasse and Norbert Morgenstern,
obtained as a courtesy from the
American Society of Civil Engineers’
Geo-Institute’s GeoStrata editors, have
already been uploaded. In this issue of
Geotechnical News, we are pleased to
present the fourth profile, the first co-
authored by an undergraduate student
and her faculty advisor.
Le Comité sur le Patrimoine de la
SCG, en partenariat avec le Comité
sur l’éducation, débute une série
d’articles intitulés «Les Légendes
canadiennes» visant à documenter la
sagesse acquise par des spécialistes
canadiens de renom dans le domaine
de la géotechnique à travers leur
parcours personnel et professionnel.
Les profils dressés dans le cadre de
cette série seront disponibles dans
les Archives virtuelles de la SCG à
l’adresse suivante:
Ils
seront également publiés occasion-
nellement dans Geotechnical News
dans l’espoir d’inspirer les étudiants
et les jeunes professionnels et de leur
fournir une opportunité d’apprendre
de certains des plus brillants esprits de
l’industrie.
Les profils des Evert Hoek, Suzanne
Lacasse et Norbert Morgenstern,
offerts gracieusement par les éditeurs
de GeoStrata, affilié au Geo-Insti-
tute de l’American Society of Civil
Engineers, sont déjà disponibles en
ligne. Dans la présente édition de
Geotechnical News, nous sommes
fiers de présenter un quatrième profil,
préparé par une étudiante au bacca-
lauréat et d’un membre de sa faculté
d’ingénierie.
Interview with Canadian
Legend: David M. Cruden,
PhD, FEIC
This interview for the Canadian Leg-
ends Series (CLS) was conducted by
Yiwen Zhang, Undergraduate Student,
and Lijun Deng, Assistant Professor,
Department of Civil & Environmental
Engineering, University of Alberta.
Lijun Deng is also a member of the
CGS Heritage Committee.
For more than 30 years at the Uni-
versity of Alberta, David M. Cruden,
Emeritus Professor of Civil & Envi-
ronmental Engineering and of Earth
& Atmospheric Sciences, taught and
researched Engineering Geology
and Terrain Analysis. Among other
awards, David Cruden has been the
recipient of the Legget Medal of
the Canadian Geotechnical Society;
the Varnes Medal of the Interna-
tional Consortium on Landslides;
the Schuster Medal of the Canadian
Geotechnical Society and Association
of Engineering Geologists; and the
Julian Smith Medal of the Engineering
Institute of Canada.
David Cruden’s former students
remember him fondly as someone pas-
sionate about Engineering Geology,
who was in his element during field
trips and enjoyed quoting seemingly
obscure scientists and philosophers.
Yiwen Zhang and Lijun Deng for
the CLS:
Could you tell us a little bit
about your background?
David Cruden
: I was born in Edmon-
ton, not the city in Alberta but an area
of north London, UK, and I’ve always
been a big fan of the Tottenham
Hotspur Football Club, the local club
in the English Premier League.
After a degree in Geology from
Oxford University, I moved to
Canada. My family has a history of
emigration to Canada, so it was not
unusual for me to come to the Uni-
versity of Alberta for my Master’s in
Structural Geology. I then returned to
England for my PhD in Rock Mechan-
ics at Imperial College, University of
London. After my PhD, I returned to
Canada and did a postdoctoral fellow-
ship at the Mining Research Labs at
Elliot Lake, a uranium mining town
about a 150 kilometres west of Sud-
bury, Ontario.
CLS
: How did you decide to study
Geology and when did you know you
wanted to be an Engineering Geolo-
gist?
DMC
: My parents are Scottish, one
from Cruden Bay (north of Aberdeen)
and one from the Highlands. Many
of my holidays as a teenager were
spent walking the hills of Scotland.
Some founders of British geology, for
example James Hutton, Charles Lyell,
and Archibald Geikie (my favorite
