Whittaker named Fellow of ASCE, SEI

by Jane Stoyle Welch

Published September 12, 2016 This content is archived.

Andrew Whittaker, a professor in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering and director of MCEER, was recently elected a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Fewer than 3.5% of ASCE’s more than 150,000 members hold this prestigious honor. 

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Andrew S. Whittaker.

Andrew Whittaker was named a Fellow of ASCE and SEI.

Whittaker also advanced to Fellow of ASCE’s Structural Engineering Institute (SEI), a grade that distinguishes members as leaders and mentors in the profession.

Founded in 1852, the American Society of Civil Engineers is the nation’s oldest engineering society. It is a leading provider of technical and professional conferences and continuing education, a publisher of civil engineering content, and an authoritative source for codes and standards that protect the public.

Whittaker, a registered civil and structural engineer in the State of California, has made significant contributions to the development of the first generation of tools for performance based earthquake engineering and led a structural engineering team to develop the second generation of these tools on behalf of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). He serves on a number of national code committees including ASCE 4, ASCE 7, and ASCE 43, and ACI 349, and chairs the ASCE Nuclear Standards Committee. He was named a Fellow of the American Concrete Institute in 2012.

In 2010-2011 he served on a National Research Council committee to develop a 20-year research agenda for earthquake engineering research in the United States; he was the only academic structural/geotechnical engineer on the committee.

He is a member of the Advisory Board for the Southern California Earthquake Center, and served as the President and Vice President of the Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering from 2003 to 2011, as well as on the Board of Directors of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute and the World Seismic Safety Initiative from 2008 to 2010.

Whittaker’s research interests are broad and include earthquake and blast engineering of buildings, long-span bridges and nuclear structures. The National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Federal Highway Administration, and Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission fund his research. He consults to federal agencies, regulators, consultancies, contractors, and utilities in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe and Asia.

A native of Australia, Whittaker worked as a civil engineer in Melbourne prior to attending graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, where he received his MS in 1985 and PhD in 1988.