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The geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering group currently
includes 4 full-time, one Emeritus faculty, and one visiting professor. Brief descriptions of each faculty
member are given below. More complete information on each member
can be found by following the links provided.
John Bowders joined the geotechnical
and geoenvironmental engineering group in August 1997. He served
on the Civil Engineering faculties at The University of Texas
at Austin and West Virginia University prior to coming to Missouri.
John's research interests include the effects of chemicals and
wastes on the properties and behavior of soil, subsurface containment
systems, in situ remediation systems, and design of experiments
for laboratory and field tests involving water and chemical movement
in soil. He has collaborated on research involving geosynthetics,
in situ containment and waste containment systems. His current
work includes soil erosion and water quality in timber harvest
areas, pavement drainage systems, settlement of municipal solid
waste, asphalt barrier for waste containment, erosion control
using geosynthetics, soil vapor extraction using wick drains and
stabilization of slopes using recycled plastic pins. John teaches
courses covering seepage in soils, foundation engineering, consolidation
and settlement, and landfill design.
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Left
to Right: Erik Loehr,John Bowders , Cynthia Finley, Brent Rosenblad,
William Likos.
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| Erik Loehr
joined the geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering group in
January 1998. Erik's primary specialties include evaluating the
stability and performance of earth slopes and retention systems,
large-scale laboratory modeling of geotechnical engineering problems,
geotechnical composite systems, and computer applications in geotechnical
engineering. His recent research projects include development and
evaluation of techniques for using recycled plastic reinforcement
for stabilization of surficial slope failures, large-scale laboratory
and numerical evaluation of reticulated micropile systems for slope
stabilization, development of a constitutive model to predict the
behavior of fiber-reinforced soils, application of asset management
principles to geotechnical engineering structures, reliability-based
design of earth slopes and retaining structures, and application
of Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) to earth slopes. Erik
is a recipient of an NSF CAREER Award and teaches courses covering
fundamental soil behavior, stability of slopes and earth retaining
structures, and foundation engineering and design. |
| William J. Likos
joined the MU faculty in August 2002. Bill was previously on the
faculty at the Colorado School of Mines where he received his doctoral
degree in 2000. The emphasis of his most recent work has been with
expansive clays, which has included experimental investigations
of the crystalline swelling mechanism, drilling fluid - shale interaction,
and the development of new methodologies for classifying swelling
potential. Bill is widely involved in unsaturated soil research,
particularly in the development of experimental techniques for measuring
soil suction, suction-induced stress, and the unsaturated permeability
function. He is the co-author of Unsaturated Soil Mechanics (Wiley,
2004). He has been involved in a broad variety of projects including
geotechnical centrifuge modeling of dynamic soil-structure interaction,
in situ monitoring of active landslides, and innovative computer
controlled testing for measuring soil properties and coupled fluid
flow. He brings his exceptional enthusiasm, energy, and technical
capabilities to MU and will be a driving force within the group.
Bill teaches courses in geotechnical earthquake engineering, unsaturated
soil mechanics, and clay behavior. |
| Brent L. Rosenblad
joined the MU faculty in August 2003. He received his doctoral degree
from The University of Texas at Austin in 2000. Prior to coming
to MU, Brent was an instructor at the University of Texas at Austin
where he was also project manager for the Network for Earthquake
Engineering Simulation (NEES) project. Brent managed the day-to-day
operations of the $3-million dollar NEES project to develop state-of-the-art
field equipment for geotechnical and structural earthquake engineering
research. Brent has significant experience in the areas of non-destructive
testing, soil dynamics and in-situ studies of soil and rock properties.
He has been involved in pavement research such as non-destructive
methods to detect voids and delaminations in rigid pavements and
super-accelerated testing of pavements. His recent work has focused
on developing and applying non-intrusive surface wave methods to
characterize seafloor sediments. Brent has also been involved in
several soil characterization studies in earthquake prone regions
of the world such as California, Turkey and Taiwan. He has collaborated
on many consulting projects including extensive site characterization
studies of the Yucca Mountain nuclear storage facility in Nevada.
Brent’s primary research interests are in laboratory and field
studies of dynamic soil properties, application and development
of non-intrusive surface wave methods, and geotechnical aspects
of pavement performance. Brent currently teaches courses in soil
dynamics and geotechnical earthquake engineering. |
Yong-Chai Chang joined the geotechnical and geoenvironmental group as a visiting professor for the period of February 2007 to February 2008. He received his BE (1984), MS (1986), and PhD (1991) from Chonnam National University in Korea. His research interests include: Soft Ground Treatment, EPS Construction Method, Slope Stability, Geo-synthetics, and Highway Design and Construction. He is an Associate Professor at the Department of Ocean Civil Engineering, Faculty of Ocean System Engineering, Mokpo National Maritime University. Prior to his current position, he worked for the Geotechnical Division of Highway & Transportation Technology Institute, Korea Highway Corporation as a Principal Research Engineer.
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| R. David Hammer is National Leader, Soil Survey Investigations for USDA-NRCS and is emeritus professor in the geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering group. He joined the Geotechnical group in 2002 after a 16 year career as professor and chair of the Soil & Atmospheric Sciences Department at Missouri. David has degrees in mechanical engineering, ecology, and soil genesis. He has a wealth of experience in applying principles from soil science and natural resources to provide solutions to current environmental problems and brings a distinctly interdisciplinary character to the geotechnical engineering group. He is an active researcher on topics that include urban stormwater control, surface mine reclamation, effects of deforestation on soil erosion and water quality, and the temporal and spatial variability of soil carbon and its influence on global climate change. He has also served as a consultant for several high profile projects involving the same topics, and has chaired several national committees for the Soil Science Society of America. David has taught courses in soil mechanics, soil classification, hydrology, urban stormwater management, pedology, and geomorphology.
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