22
Geotechnical News • December 2019
CANADIAN GEOTECHNICAL SOCIETY NEWS
then accepted the position of Chair
in geotechnical engineering and
embarked on an ambitious centrifuge
modelling research. As a Research
Assistant of Prof. Schofield, I worked
in pipe soil interaction but also par-
ticipated in other centrifuge model-
ling projects. I gained very valuable
experience in advanced experimental
methods at Cambridge and enjoyed
many discussions with Prof. Scho-
field on a variety of research areas
in geotechnical engineering. While
at Cambridge, I also took courses
from Dr. Peter Wroth in Critical State
Soil Mechanics and its application to
analysis and design.
Having gained research and teaching
experience I realized that I needed to
get practical experience and therefore
came back to Canada to work with
Jacques Whitford and Associates on a
full time basis and continued to work
with Prof. Meyerhof on a part time
basis. Dr. John Brown mentored me
in early years of my consulting career.
He introduced me to the National
Building Code and the draft version
of the Canadian Foundation Engineer-
ing Manual. He encouraged me to do
field work and laboratory testing so
that I had better appreciation of soil
characterization used in analysis and
designs. I also remember his advice:
“Try to understand the problem first
before rushing to solve it”, and “Use
two concise sentences to convey your
message rather than using two confus-
ing paragraphs”.
In 1981, John Brown decided to leave
Nova Scotia Technical College and
join full time JWA. Prof. Meyerhof
also retired and JWA expanded with
opening offices in New Brunswick. As
a result, I moved to Fredericton to join
University of New Brunswick as a full
time faculty member and part time
consultant with JWA.
In the initial years at the Univer-
sity of New Brunswick, I developed
experimental facilities to do 1-g model
testing coupled with instrumentation
and monitoring of prototype struc-
tures. I was fortunate to have Prof.
Arvid Landva as my colleague who
provided critical and through reviews
for my research ideas. In addition to
developing facilities for 1-g model
testing, we started making plans for
building a medium size centrifuge at
UNB. In this regards I received tre-
mendous help from Dr. Bob Mitchell
who shared design notes and drawings
of his centrifuge at Queen’s Univer-
sity. I also had many discussions with
Prof Schofield while I was on my
sabbatical at Cambridge regarding
design of UNB centrifuge. I am very
proud to say that our students did the
entire design and the centrifuge was
commissioned in 1989 with fund-
ing of $100, 000 received from the
Gillin Endowment Fund. The facility
is in use since then to do research on
a variety of problems in the area of
soil structure interaction. The model
testing research is supplemented with
instrumentation and monitoring of
prototype structures and I would like
to thank the New Brunswick Depart-
ment of Transportation and Infrastruc-
ture for providing significant grants to
support this research.
I would like to take this opportunity
to acknowledge the contributions of
many students at UNB and young and
mid-career engineers at JWA (now
Stantec Consulting), for supporting
my research and consulting activities
in last 30 years.
A few words about my association
with the Canadian Geotechnical
Society. I have been a member of
the society since 1977. I was encour-
aged by Dr. Bob Mitchell to serve as
an Associate Editor of the Canadian
Geotechnical Journal while he was
the Editor and continued in that role
when Dr. Dennis Becker became Edi-
tor. I was encouraged by both Dennis
and Bob to take over as Editor when
Dennis stepped down. I would like to
thank Dennis, Bob and all Associate
Editors for their support during my
5-year term as Editor of the Journal.
During my term, we switched from six
issues per year to 12 issues, expanded
the editorial board to include more
international Associate Editors, and in
the final year switched from hard copy
to electronic submission of papers.
Finally I would like to thank my wife
Hema for her unconditional support
by travelling to different countries
with our small children so that I could
develop my professional career and
more importantly allowing me to play
in the “sandbox” and jump in “mud
puddles” over 5 decades of our mar-
ried life.
Thank you all.
Médaille Legget :
Merci, Paul, pour votre présentation et
vos bons mots. J’aimerais également
remercier Sterling Parsons d’avoir
pris en main la préparation de ma
mise en candidature et tous ceux qui
ont écrit des lettres d’appui. C’est
vraiment un honneur de recevoir la
Médaille Legget de la Société cana-
dienne de géotechnique devant mes
pairs et collègues. Même si je reçois
cet honneur, ce prix reconnaît égale-
ment les contributions de personnes
et d’organisations qui ont façonné
et appuyé ma carrière durant 50 ans.
J’aimerais prendre quelques minutes
pour reconnaître ces contributions.
J’ai obtenu mon diplôme de premier
cycle en 1963 et j’ai été accepté en
tant qu’étudiant gradué à l’Institut
indien des sciences de Bangalore.
Après avoir terminé ma maîtrise en
génie, j’ai poursuivi mes études à
cet institut pour faire ma recherche
doctorale dans le domaine des interac-
tions pieux-sol sous la supervision du
professeur Siva Reddy. Il m’a présenté
les méthodes avancées d’analyse
théorique et numérique en géomé-
canique ainsi que la programmation
informatique. Il a été un excellent
superviseur qui a jeté de solides bases
pour ma carrière en recherche.
À la suite de mes études aux cycles
supérieurs, je me suis joint à l’Institut
indien de technologie de Kanpur à titre
de membre du corps professoral. J’ai
continué à faire de la recherche dans
le domaine des interactions pieux-sol
