PhD students Patrick Wilson (UCSD), Ahmadreza Mortezaie (UCLA), Ben Mason (UCB) and Pirooz Kashighandi (UCLA), were selected by PEER to receive complementary registration to the EERI Technical Seminar, "Practical Applications to Deep Foundations: Buildings, Bridges, and Ports." These four students attended the seminar which was hosted in San Francisco on July 23 and Los Angeles on July 24. This seminar discussed performance-based approaches to the design and analysis of deep foundations which was of particular interest to each of the students who are all researching topics in geotechnical engineering.
Ben Mason is performing research in the area of soil-foundation-structure interaction and found the seminar enlightening because it "highlighted what problems need to be investigated by researchers in order to advance the state-of-practice". Pirooz Kashighandi's research topic is the fragility of bridges due to liquefaction and lateral spreading. Patrick Wilson is conducting research in the areas of bridge abutment soil-structure interaction and dynamic pressure on earth retaining structures. According to Ahmadreza Mortezaie, the seminar was "very informative and interesting." His thesis will be titled Monotonic and Cyclic Behavior of Soils under Very Small Confining Stresses.
PEER extends a special thank you to EERI for hosting a successful seminar.
posted July 30, 2008