Two AISI Committee on Specifications Members Receive ASCE's Highest Honor

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The following outstanding individuals have been elected distinguished members of ASCE. With the exception of ASCE's presidency, the status of distinguished member-formerly known as honorary member-is the highest honor conferred by the Society. There are now 209 distinguished members. The 2012 class will be formally inducted during the 142nd Annual Civil Engineering Conference, which will be held in Montreal October 18-20.

ROBERT E. ALGER, P.E., Dist.M.ASCE, is honored for leading an extremely successful construction corporation that has experienced dramatic growth in size and revenue; for serving the construction industry through his work on several specialty boards; and for becoming a role model for young civil engineers through his adherence to high standards of professionalism and ethics.

As the president and chief executive officer of the Lane Construction Corporation, of Cheshire, Connecticut, Alger is a recognized leader in the construction industry, and his integrity, character, and commitment to excellence have been an inspiration to young civil engineers. Under his leadership, Lane Construction has increased its revenues and geographic influence and has gained a reputation for quality work, on-time performance, and good client relations.

During his tenure as president and chief executive officer, Lane Construction has undertaken several very large and complex projects, among them a $1.35-billion undertaking to construct high-occupancy travel lanes in northern Virginia for Interstate 495 (the "Capital Beltway"); the construction of a runway at Washington Dulles International Airport, in Chantilly, Virginia; and the demolition and reconstruction of the Daytona International Speedway, in Daytona, Florida.

Alger earned a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Pennsylvania State University in 1979 and upon graduation immediately joined Lane Construction. Over the years he rose through the ranks to hold the positions of project engineer, project manager, and vice president, and in 2001 he was named president and chief executive officer. During his 11 years at the helm, the firm's revenue has grown from $700 million to more than $1 billion.

The president of ASCE's Construction Institute in 2004, Alger has served as the president of the Moles and has been a member of the Beavers' board of directors, the Construction Industry Round Table, Penn State's Industry and Professional Advisory Council, and the Columbus Citizens Foundation. In 2006 Penn State's College of Engineering honored him with its Outstanding Engineering Alumni Award.

GLEN T. DAIGGER, Ph.D., P.E., BCEE, Dist.M.ASCE, is honored for his innovative work in using biological systems to improve water quality and for helping to advance urban water management globally.

The senior vice president and chief technology officer of CH2M HILL, of Englewood, Colorado, and the president of the International Water Association, Daigger is recognized internationally for his work on water quality improvement and urban water management. He is regarded as an expert in using biological systems to improve water quality, and for more than 35 years he has worked to expand and refine such applications. His nine patents for wastewater treatment have helped set standards for the nation's wastewater treatment, and as an author or coauthor he has more than 250 publications to his credit, including 4 books and several widely used technical manuals. He coauthored Biological Wastewater Treatment (CRC Press, 1998), the standard textbook on the subject, and Manual on the Causes and Control of Activated Sludge Bulking, Foaming, and Other Solids Separation Problems (CRC Press, 2003), which also has become a standard reference work. He also chaired the task force that produced the book Design of Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants (New York City: McGraw-Hill, 1992), published as a joint project by ASCE's Environmental and Water Resources Institute and the Water Environment Federation. A reviewer for numerous journals, Daigger has served on and chaired the editorial board of Water Environment Research.

His contributions include control of activated sludge settling (bulking) and foaming problems, membrane bioreactors, systems incorporating both suspended and attached growth, and the use of biological systems to remove nitrogen and phosphorus. These advances have significantly enlarged the toolbox that engineers can use to remove contaminants from water. An expert in wastewater reclamation for reuse, Daigger has advanced innovative concepts for urban water and resource management, including reclamation and reuse, rainwater harvesting, distributed systems, energy and heat recovery, and source separation, and he has been involved in many of the benchmark projects that have introduced these innovations into mainstream engineering practice.

Daigger holds a bachelor's degree in civil engineering, a master's degree in environmental engineering, and a doctorate in environmental engineering, all from Purdue University. His accolades include ASCE's Simon W. Freese Environmental Engineering Award, the American Academy of Environmental Engineers' Stanley E. Kappe Award, and the Water Environment Federation's Harrison Prescott Eddy Medal and Gascoigne Metal. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2003 in recognition of his theoretical and practical work in wastewater treatment and for improving the practice of environmental engineering worldwide.

DAVID DARWIN, Ph.D., P.E., F.SEI, Dist.M.ASCE, is honored for his numerous contributions to the concrete industry, his research on bond strength and corrosion resistance, his development of ASTM International tests that have radically changed design practices for reinforced concrete, and his achievements in educating the next generation of civil engineers.

The Deane E. Ackers Distinguished Professor at the University of Kansas and the director of the school's Structural Engineering and Materials Laboratory, Darwin has carried out research that has changed design and research practices for reinforced-concrete structures across the country. His current work involves methods for improving the durability of transportation structures, with special emphasis on reducing cracking in reinforced-concrete bridge decks and corrosion in reinforcing steel.

Darwin is also the director of the University of Kansas's Infrastructure Research Institute, and his research there led to the development of a standardized test (ASTM A944) for evaluating the bond strength of reinforced-concrete systems with realistic boundary conditions. His work shed light on the influence of relative rib area on the bond strength of reinforcing steel and was instrumental in recognizing bond strength as a structural property rather than a property of the reinforcing steel alone. This research has changed the way engineers understand and validate bond strength, and ASTM A944 is now the industry standard for small-scale bond tests.

Darwin's work in durability is extending the life of reinforced-concrete bridge decks across the country. His studies have evaluated numerous corrosion protection systems and linked laboratory performance to actual chloride contents in the field. His work evaluating stainless steel has been incorporated as a standard test method in an annex to ASTM A955, and he is currently leading a 10-year study involving 19 state departments of transportations and the Federal Highway Administration to investigate ways of constructing bridge decks that will minimize cracking.

A former president of the American Concrete Institute and a former member of the Board of Governors of ASCE's Structural Engineering Institute, Darwin served for six years as the editor of the Society's Journal of Structural Engineering. He also coauthored the texts Concrete (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2002) and Design of Concrete Structures (New York City: McGraw-Hill, 2009).

Darwin earned a bachelor's degree in civil engineering and a master's degree in structural engineering and materials science from Cornell University and a doctorate in civil engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His accomplishments in a career of more than 40 years as a preeminent researcher and teacher of structural engineering have been recognized with numerous awards, among them the 2003 Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Illinois Civil and Environmental Engineering Alumni Association. In January 2010 Darwin appeared on the cover of Concrete Construction as one of the five most influential individuals in the concrete industry in 2009.

JAMES M. FISHER, Ph.D., P.E., Dist.M.ASCE, is honored for outstanding leadership in structural engineering through contributions to engineering education, the development of codes and standards, and the encouragement of closer ties between the design community and the construction industry.

The vice president for forensic investigations of industrial buildings for Computerized Structural Design, S.C., of Milwaukee, Fisher is an acknowledged leader in the structural engineering profession. This leadership has encompassed numerous aspects of steel design and construction, and he has been instrumental in writing landmark design guides on such topics as serviceability design for steel structures, temporary bracing for low-rise steel structures, and designing with steel joists and joist girders.

He joined Computerized Structural Design in 1973 and became a principal of the firm a year later. He has specialized in structural steel research and development and has spent much of his career investigating building systems and studying economical structural framing systems. Fisher is a recognized authority on the performance of structures and on the design of heavy industrial structures, metal building systems, and light-gauge steel structures.

Within ASCE Fisher serves on the Structural Engineering Institute's Minimum Design Loads for Buildings and Other Structures Standards Committee and the Committee on Design of Steel Building Structures, and he is recognized in the industry for lending his considerable expertise to advancing the design of cold-formed steel structures in the marketplace. In addition to serving on an American National Standards Institute committee concerned with specifications for the design of cold-formed steel structural members, he is a technical adviser to the Steel Joist Institute and a coauthor of several American Iron and Steel Institute design guides.

Recognized as an excellent teacher who does not hesitate to share his technical and practical knowledge with others, Fisher has been a civil engineering instructor at the University of Illinois, an assistant professor of structural engineering at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and a lecturer at Marquette University. He continues to receive many requests to participate in programs and lecture at several universities.

Fisher earned a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of Wisconsin and both a master's degree in civil engineering and a doctorate in structural engineering from the University of Illinois. Before joining Computerized Structural Design he worked in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, at United States Steel's Applied Research Laboratory and was a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Over the years Fisher's work has been recognized by numerous awards from the steel construction industry. The American Institute of Steel Construction honored him with its T.R. Higgins Lectureship Award in 1984, a lifetime achievement award in 2000, and its J. Lloyd Kimbrough Award in 2006.

NICHOLAS J. GARBER, Ph.D., P.E., Dist.M.ASCE, is honored for his outstanding reputation in traffic operations and safety, for his contributions in civil engineering education, including coauthoring comprehensive transportation engineering textbooks, and for his leadership of programs that have increased diversity in the civil engineering workforce.

The Henry L. Kinnier Professor of Civil Engineering Emeritus at the University of Virginia and a faculty research engineer with the Virginia Department of Transportation, Garber has made significant contributions to the civil engineering profession as a teacher, mentor, researcher, and practitioner. His research on two-lane roads has been incorporated into the field practice and specifications of transportation agencies throughout the United States and thus has greatly enhanced the safety of these roads.

He has been a member of the faculty at the University of Virginia since 1980 and has served as department head and as the director of the Center for Transportation Studies. He has also been instrumental in implementing programs to attract minority students, and he served for many years as the faculty adviser to the university chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers.

Before joining the University of Virginia, Garber taught at the University of Sierra Leone and the State University of New York at Buffalo. He also worked as a civil engineer in London for the firm now known as Scott Wilson Group plc and as a senior executive engineer for Sierra Leone's public works ministry, where he was responsible for overseeing the design and construction of various facets of the country's infrastructure. He continued to serve as a consultant to the ministry during his academic career.

Within ASCE he is a member of the Transportation and Development Institute's Street and Highway Operations Committee, and he served on the editorial board of the Journal of Transportation Engineering. He has also applied his editorial expertise to various studies on speed management and the size and weight of large trucks that have been published by the Transportation Research Board, and he has served on that board's executive committee and chaired its committee on traffic safety in maintenance and construction operations.

Garber earned a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of London in 1961 and a master's degree and a doctorate in civil engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in respectively 1969 and 1971. His accolades include the Transportation Research Board's D. Grant Mickle Award, the American Road and Transportation Builders Association's S.S. Steinberg Award, and the Institute of Transportation Engineers' Edmund R. Ricker Transportation Safety Award.

ACHINTYA HALDAR, Ph.D., P.E., Dist.M.ASCE, is honored for his numerous contributions over a career of more than 40 years as a researcher, teacher, mentor, and innovative practitioner. These achievements include the introduction of a stochastic finite-element method, a novel technique for assessing structural health, an intelligent nonlinear seismic analysis technique, and an inspection-based maintenance strategy.

A professor of civil engineering and engineering mechanics at the University of Arizona at Tucson, Haldar fundamentally changed structural engineering by developing the stochastic finite-element method, and he coauthored two standard books on the subject, Probability, Reliability, and Statistical Methods in Engineering Design (Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, 1999) and Reliability Assessment Using Stochastic Finite Element Analysis (Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, 2000).

The stochastic finite-element method provided an alternative to the classical random vibration approach. The latter received much attention from researchers in the latter half of the 20th century but failed to gain widespread use for large and nonlinear structural systems. Haldar's work on performance-based design is regarded as transformational and will inform the next generation of design guidelines. The interdisciplinary research area involving structural health assessment he initiated has received significant attention from the profession for its originality.

Haldar's scholarly and professional achievements are prolific, internationally heralded, and span several disciplines in that they involve methods for modeling uncertain geotechnical parameters in three dimensions. He proposed updating and maintenance strategies based on nondestructive inspection for a major mass transit system, developed methods to assess the effects of missile impacts on nuclear power plants, proposed methods to improve river navigational systems, and developed a steel connection suitable for use in seismically active regions.

His outstanding teaching and mentoring activities have been recognized with awards from the Illinois Institute of Technology, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the University of Arizona. Many of the doctoral and master's students for whom he was an adviser have gone on to become highly respected faculty members at academic institutions in this country and in Canada, South Korea, Mexico, Taiwan, and Jordan.

Haldar received a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Jadavpur University, in India, in 1968 and master's and doctoral degrees in civil engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in respectively 1973 and 1976. His numerous accolades include ASCE's Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize.

PERRY L. MCCARTY, Sc.D., Dist.M.ASCE, is honored for his pioneering and sustained contributions to environmental engineering as one of the founding fathers of the field, for research achievements that have earned him a number of prestigious awards, and for educating generations of environmental engineers.

The Silas H. Palmer Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, McCarty is recognized worldwide as a pioneer and leader in the design and operation of water and wastewater systems. He defined the field of environmental biotechnology, which forms the basis for small- and large-scale pollution control and water quality systems, and he is one of the most highly cited researchers in the field of environmental engineering. Because of his prominence in environmental engineering, McCarty has served on numerous committees, panels, and boards as either member or chair and has done consulting work for various government agencies, including the National Research Council, the National Academies of Sciences, and the Water Pollution Control Federation (now the Water Environment Federation).

His research interests have encompassed biological processes for the control of environmental contaminants, and his early research dealt with anaerobic treatment processes, water reuse, and biological processes for nitrogen removal. His current work focuses on aerobic and anaerobic biological processes for controlling hazardous chemicals; advanced wastewater treatment processes; and the movement, fate, and control of groundwater contaminants.

McCarty has more than 350 publications to his credit and is a coauthor of two textbooks, Environmental Biotechnology-Principles and Applications (New York City: McGraw-Hill, 2000) and Chemistry for Environmental Engineering and Science (New York City: McGraw-Hill, 2002). He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1977 in recognition of his contributions to the environmental engineering profession through education, research, and service to government and industry, and at the time he was one of the youngest members of the academy. He numerous accolades include the University of Southern California's John and Alice Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, the National Water Research Institute's Athalie Richardson Irvine Clarke Prize, and the Stockholm International Water Institute's Stockholm Water Prize. ASCE has recognized his accomplishments with its Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize, Simon W. Freese Environmental Engineering Award, and J. James R. Croes Medal.

McCarty earned a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Wayne State University and master's and doctoral degrees in civil engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

THOMAS M. MURRAY, Ph.D., P.E., Dist.M.ASCE, is honored for seminal contributions leading to the development of criteria for floor serviceability and for advancing structural engineering and engineering education.

A professor emeritus at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), Murray is considered one the world's foremost experts on problems deriving from the vibration of buildings and bridges under human, industrial, and environmental excitation. He is often called upon to recommend solutions for problems related to the neglect of dynamic excitation during the design phase of structural projects.

An internationally recognized expert on roof systems for metal buildings, Murray and his research team at Virginia Tech have developed the only known design criteria for standing-seam roof panel systems. Since generic determination of the lateral restraint supplied by these systems is not possible, he and his colleagues developed effective experimental methods. He has also developed and verified design procedures for end plate moment connections in steel buildings.

His commitment to the structural engineering profession has significantly affected the economics and safety of steel-framed buildings, primarily because of his focus on translating the latest research to the design community. Murray's research has greatly influenced specifications developed by the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) and the American Iron and Steel Institute and is reflected in the AISC's Steel Construction Manual. He coauthored the design guide published by the AISC and the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction entitled Floor Vibration Due to Human Activity, which is used by engineers around the world.

Murray's pioneering achievements were recognized by the National Academy of Engineering, which made him a member in 2002 for his leadership in developing criteria for floor serviceability and his major contributions to structural steel design engineering practice. Virginia Tech honored him when it chose a name for its Thomas M. Murray Structural Engineering Laboratory, and ASCE conferred its 2009 Ernest E. Howard Award on him for his sustained contributions in elucidating and mitigating floor vibrations in steel buildings caused by occupants. The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia bestowed its Outstanding Faculty Award on him in 2006, and the AISC recognized his achievements with its T.R. Higgins Lectureship Award in 1977 and Geerhard Haaijer Educator Award in 2007.

Murray spent 17 years at the University of Oklahoma and in 1987 joined Virginia Tech, where the Board of Visitors named him the Montague-Betts Professor of Structural Steel Design. He earned a bachelor's degree from Iowa State University in 1962, a master's degree from Lehigh University in 1966, and a doctorate in engineering mechanics from the University of Kansas in 1970.

GEORGE F. PINDER, Ph.D., Dist.M.ASCE, is honored for his pioneering leadership in the use of computer methods to solve practical problems of belowground fluid flow and mass transport, for educating the next generation of hydrologists, and for his service to the U.S. government.

A professor at the University of Vermont, where he is also the director of the Research Center for Groundwater Remediation Design, Pinder is internationally renowned for his expertise in applying groundwater modeling to water resources problems. He pioneered the development of computational tools for predicting and managing groundwater flow and the belowground transport of chemicals. His research has helped to establish the key principles of this field, and his findings have been applied to problems of national and international relevance.

Pinder's early numerical modeling code formed the basis for two- and three-dimensional groundwater flow simulation models, including the U.S. Geological Survey's MODFLOW, which has become the most commonly used simulator of groundwater flow in water supply and groundwater contamination investigations. His mathematical models describing the flow, transport, and transformation of non-aqueous-phase contaminants in porous media have been used extensively around the world, and his least-cost designs of groundwater remediation systems have received wide application.

The author of 10 books on topics ranging from general subsurface flow and multiphase flow to the use of geographic information systems for groundwater modeling applications and a coauthor of Subsurface Hydrology (Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, 2006), Pinder is a recognized expert in the field of groundwater contamination and has provided expert testimony in litigation on the subject for several high-profile cases.

Pinder earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Western Ontario in 1965 and a doctorate from the University of Illinois in 1968. His accolades include ASCE's Julian Hinds Award, the American Geophysical Union's Horton Award, and the Geological Society of America's O.E. Meinzer Award. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2010.

BRUCE E. RITTMANN, Ph.D., Dist.M.ASCE, is honored for his theoretical and practical contributions in environmental engineering, his work as a teacher, and his professional leadership around the world.

A professor at Arizona State University, where he is also the director of the Biodesign Institute's Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology, Rittmann is recognized worldwide as a leader in environmental engineering, particularly for his research on the fundamentals of biofilms for water quality control. His work on the removal of nitrates, ammonia, and such trace organic compounds as 2-methylisoborneol has been instrumental in persuading the drinking water industry to accept this technology. More than anyone else,
Rittmann has brought the modern tools of molecular biology to environmental engineering and at the same time has advanced mathematical modeling as a means of understanding and designing biological processes, and he has been a leader internationally in wastewater treatment, drinking water treatment, bioremediation, and microbial bioenergy.

Rittmann has a long record of distinguished service to the profession. He was the vice-chair of the National Research Council's Water Science and Technology Board and chaired two panels convened by the council that produced reports on in situ bioremediation. He has served as president of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors and been a member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Science Advisory Board, and he currently serves as president of the International Water Association's conference series on leading-edge technology.

Environmental Biotechnology: Principles and Applications (New York City: McGraw-Hill, 2000), a textbook he coauthored, is the worldwide standard on the subject and has been translated into Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Spanish. Rittmann has also served as the editor in chief of the journal Biodegradation and is currently a member of a number of editorial boards, including that for Environmental Science & Technology.

Honored with ASCE's Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize in 1990 and Simon W. Freese Environmental Engineering Award in 2009, Rittmann was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2004 in recognition of his pioneering biofilm research and his work in applying this research to remediate contaminated water, soil, and ecosystems. He was also the inaugural recipient of the National Water Research Institute's Athalie Richardson Irvine Clarke Prize.

Rittmann earned a bachelor's degree in civil engineering and a master's degree in environmental engineering from Washington University and in 1979 received a doctorate in environmental engineering from Stanford University.

RICHARD L. TUCKER, Ph.D., P.E., Dist.M.ASCE, is honored for his acknowledged eminence in project management in the areas of capital facilities delivery, construction project planning, and construction productivity and for his work in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of design and procurement.

A professor emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin, where he holds the Joe C. Walter Jr. Chair in Engineering, Tucker led the effort to create the Construction Industry Institute (CII) in 1983 and served as its director until his retirement, in 1998. A nonprofit consortium of more than 100 public- and private-sector groups involved in engineering, contracting, and construction materials, the CII seeks to improve sustainability and cost-effectiveness through research, coordination, and other initiatives. Each year it presents the Richard L. Tucker Leadership and Service Award to an individual deemed to have contributed to its mission and its success as an organization.

Tucker's name became synonymous with construction productivity improvement when Texaco brought him in to investigate the fire and explosions that occurred at its Pembroke Refinery, in the United Kingdom, in July 1994. In 2006 ASCE chose him to serve on a panel it was forming at the behest of Virginia's secretary of transportation to study a tunnel that had been proposed in northern Virginia as part of a westward extension of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority's Metrorail. Tucker also provided research and consulting services for the U.S. Air Force's global air and space bases that significantly improved the productivity of that branch's $10-billion annual capital improvement program. His contributions led all the chiefs of engineers in the U.S. armed forces to jointly pioneer alternative project delivery systems that have significantly lowered costs and accelerated project delivery.

Tucker's numerous accolades include ASCE's Peurifoy Construction Research Award, of which he was the inaugural recipient, and the CII's Carroll H. Dunn Award of Excellence. He is an honorary member of the Moles and a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Construction, and the Academy of Medicine, Engineering, and Science of Texas.

Tucker holds bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees from the University of Texas at Austin.