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Proceedings of the 18
th
International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Paris 2013
component. He has been cited several times for the quality of
his refereed journal contributions. While his home base duties
are at the Royal Military College in Ontario he has adjunct
appointments at the University of British Columbia, the
University of Manitoba, and Queen’s University.
3.3
ISSMGE Outstanding Young Geotechnical Engineer Award
The ISSMGE Outstanding Young Geotechnical Engineer
Award is given to a young individual or to a team of young
individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the
practice or research in geotechnical engineering through one or
more research or industrial projects. Young is defined here as
less than 36 years of age on 31 December 2013.
The recipient of the 2013 ISSMGE Outstanding Young
Geotechnical Engineer Award is Dr. Guillermo Narsilio
(Argentina-Australia). Dr. Narsilio received his Bachelor’s
degree from the University of Cordoba in Argentina and his
PhD degree from Georgia Tech in the USA. He has already won
a number of awards including the 2009 Jack Morgan Award
from the Australian Geomechanics Society. He has published
already significantly for his age and is a Senior Lecturer at the
University of Melbourne in Australia.
3.4
ISSMGE Outstanding Member Society Award
This international recognition in Geo-Engineering is
awarded to recognize the most outstanding ISSMGE Member
Society and to reward young and smaller Member Societies
who are active.
The recipient of the outstanding Member Society Award is
the New Zealand Geotechnical Society. Gavin Alexander is
here from NZGS to receive the award on behalf of his member
society. NZGS members regularly organize a number of
conferences and workshops and seminars, they write guidelines
and standards for their practitioners, and they contribute to
various ISSMGE technical committees. They have 597
members for a population of some 4.5 million making it one of
the highest ratio in ISSMGE.
3.5
ISSMGE Outstanding Technical Committee Award
The ISSMGE Outstanding Technical Committee Award is
given to an ISSMGE TC which has demonstrated excellence in
disseminating knowledge, establishing guidelines, supporting
conferences, and interacting with other groups. There was a
very tight competition between 10 TCs for this award!
The recipient of the ISSMGE Outstanding Technical
Committee Award is the TC on Risk and Reliability (Chair:
Prof. K. K. Phoon). This committee truly excelled in each one
of the award categories and was very active throughout the last
4 years. The host country is Singapore.
3.6
ISSMGE Outstanding Paper in the International Journal of
Geo-Engineering Case Histories Award.
The criterion for this award is the best paper in the on line
ISSMGE Case Histories Journal during the last 4 years. The
recipients are: Prof. John Burland, Prof. Mike Jamiolkowski,
and Prof. Carlo Viggiani for their excellent paper on the Tower
of Pisa. Their outstanding work for the Tower of Pisa has
strongly highlighted our profession.
3.7
ISSMGE Outstanding Geotechnical Project Award
This international recognition in Geo-Engineering is
awarded to a project that best illustrates superior geotechnical
engineering skills and represents significant contributions to
geotechnical engineering progress and society.
Projects from Australia, Hong Kong, Ireland, Kazhakstan,
Korea, Tunisia, USA were submitted and the competition was
very stiff. The winner is the Korean project entitled “Busan-
Geoje Fixed Link Immersed Tunnel”. Mr. Keunyoung Kim,
Managing Director of Daewoo Engineering & Construction Co.
Ltd was responsible for this huge project in connection with of
the Korean Geotechnical Society, chaired by Professor Yeon-
Soo Jang. This impressive immersed tunnel is part of a 2 Billion
dollar project which took 6 years to construct. In short it is a 3.3
km tunnel resting at the bottom of the sea to connect the city of
Busan to the Island of Geoje. The soil was 20 m of very soft
marine clay which had to be improved by different methods to
minimize the differential settlement. A combination of methods
were selected including deep soil mixing columns, sand
compaction piles, rock replacement and preloading. Many
difficult geotechnical problems were overcome and the tunnel
was completed in 2010.
3.8
ISSMGE Outstanding Public Relation Award
This international public relations recognition in Geo-
Engineering is awarded to an individual or an organization who
contributed outstandingly in promoting geotechnical
engineering and showing its importance as a profession in life.
The 2013 ISSMGE Outstanding Public Relation Award goes to
Dr. Marc Ballouz of Lebanon. Dr. Ballouz got his Bachelor’s
degree in Lebanon and his Master and PhD degrees from Texas
A&M University. He started his own geotechnical consulting
and construction company in the mid 1990s, which has grown
remarkably, and now has a worldwide presence. He has
contributed in many ways to impact the image of geotechnical
engineering worldwide through general magazine articles,
YouTube videos, brochures, web site development, the time
capsule, all this with his members of the Public Relations
Committee.
3.9
ISSMGE Outstanding Innovator Award
This international recognition is awarded to an individual
ISSMGE member (researcher, consultant, contractor) for
innovations that have had a pronounced impact on
geo
‐
engineering practice, research and education. The term
“innovation” is used broadly to describe any major,
unprecedented achievements that led to a significant
advancement in our profession.
The 2013 ISSMGE Outstanding Innovator Award goes to
Dr. Dimitris Zekkos of Greece-USA. Dr. Dimitris Zekkos
received his degree in Greece and his PhD from the University
of California at Berkeley. He worked with Geosyntech for
several years and is now a professor at the University of
Michigan where his specialty is geoenvironmental engineering.
As a student at Berkeley he started Geoengineer.org which has
become the go-to site when you want information on
geotechnical engineering. Then he started the International
Journal of Geoengineering Case Histories (with a revolutionary
way of disseminating the information: free for all on the
internet) and more recently GeoWorld a professional exchange
network for all geotechnical engineers worldwide.
Volume 6 - Page 74