UPDATE

Geosystems Engineering Program

School of Civil & Environmental Engineering

Georgia Institute of Technology
790 Atlantic Drive

Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0355 USA

Fax: 404-894-2281 and Phone-2282

November 11, 2002

Dear Colleague

This memorandum is sent to you from the geotechnical faculty at Georgia Tech to inform you of recent developments in our program. Some specific items of interest are given below.

  • We are particularly enthralled to announce the appointment of Dr. Alexander ("Sasha") Puzrin as an Associate Professor to the Geosystems Engineering Program at Georgia Tech. Sasha comes to us directly from the Technion yet has spent many working hours at visits to Imperial College with John Burland, at Oxford University with his co-author Guy Houlsby, and at the University of Western Australia where he collaborated with Mark Randolph. Dr. Puzrin maintains expertise in limit plasticity, analytical & computational mechanics, stress-strain-strength behavior of geomaterials, constitutive relationships, hyperplasticity, thermomechanical modeling of soils, as well as additional interests in earthquake engineering, elasticity, and foundations.
  • Our GT Program now consists of 7 fulltime faculty, 2 visiting faculty, 49 graduate students (approximately 65% PhD and 35% MS degree), 3 postdocs, and 2 undergraduate students, as well as a fulltimesecretary, machine specialist, and lab technician.
  • In the past 8 years, the GT Geosystems Program has placed 22 of our graduated PhDs in geotechnical faculty positions at accredited universities. More details can be found at:
  • Carlos Santamarina was named the holder of the Goizueta Chair at Georgia Tech. Carlos has also produced his second book now available from Wiley & Sons: Soils & Waves (2001).
  • David Frost gave an invited keynote lecture in November at the 17th Venezuelan Geotechnical Seminar on "Recent Developments in Field Characterization of Geomaterials"in Caracas. David has also developed innovative data acquisition systems using PDA that has been used in detailing damage during the Izmit 1999 earthquake in Turkey and the 2001 World Trade Center Event. Wearing another hat, David has established groundbreaking ceremonies for a new GTREP campus located in Savannah, Georgia.
  • Leonid Germanovich received the "Best Paper Award" from Sigma Xi Society in 2002. Leonid heads up the Rock & Fracture Group at GT and has given recent presentations in September during visits to Italy, South Africa, and Australia.
  • Paul Mayne is an editor for the upcoming ADSC-ASCE GeoSupport Conference in February 2004 ( and the new chair of the ISSMGE Technical Committee TC 16 on "Ground Property Characterization by In-Situ Tests" with plans now underway for the second International Conference on Site Characterization (ISC-2) to be held September 19-22, 2004 in Portugal. Details may be found at:
  • Glenn J. Rix serves the director of the Georgia Transportation Institute ( and has continued to be the geotechnical leader for projects of the Mid-America Earthquake Center ( that address issues of seismic analysis and design, particularly in the New Madrid and Charleston/SC seismic regions of the USA.

Table 1. Geosystems Engineering Faculty at Georgia Tech

Faculty / Areas of Expertise and Research Activities
J. David Frost / Digital image analysis, Forensic geotechnical studies, Interface behavior, Integrated systems for field reconnaissance, Geotechnical earthquake engineering, Particle-continuum physical interfaces
Leonid N. Germanovich / Fracture mechanics, Computational geomechanics, Deep borehole analysis, Rock engineering, Properties of earth & extraterrestrial bodies, Micro-mechanical modeling
James S. Lai / Application of GIS information technology for infrastructure assessment rehabilitation, Pavement materials & design, Characterization of asphalt; Concrete technology; Geotextiles & geomembranes; Nonlinear viscoelasticity
Paul W. Mayne / Geotechnical site characterization, soil properties determination, in-situ testing, geostatic stress state, foundation systems, ground modification, Liquefaction assessment by seismic piezocone testing.
Alexander Puzrin / Constitutive modeling of soils; Thermomechanical approach to plasticity, Limit analysis of geotechnical problems; Geotechnical earthquake engineering.
Glenn J. Rix / Soil dynamics; Geophysical methods; Geotechnical earthquake engineering; Spectral analysis of surface waves;
J. Carlos Santamarina / Fundamental processes of soils & subsurface media; Waves & signal processing in geomaterials; Micromechanical behavior of soils;

The GT Geosystems Engineering Group encouragesthe submission of applications from prospective geotechnical candidates to our graduate program. Information may be found at: