Geotechnical Engineering Program

Faculty in the Geotechnical Engineering program earned notable recognition this year. Adrian Rodriguez-Marek received an Erskine Fellowship from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and was appointed editor of the Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

Russell Green delivered invited lectures at the Professor James K. Mitchell Memorial Symposium at UC Berkeley and GeoVirginia 2025. He is also guest editing a special issue of Seismological Research Letters. Major new projects highlight the program’s breadth. Rodriguez-Marek and Green launched a Stantec-funded study on liquefaction triggering in gravelly soils, while Rodriguez-Marek led a two-year seismic hazard update for Los Alamos National Laboratory. Alba Yerro-Colom began a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project on improving heavy vehicle mobility on soft soils, and Joe Vantassel secured ARPA-E funding to develop a Multi-Physics Intelligent Sensing System (MISS) for real-time drilling. Vantassel also co-filed a patent on integrated sensing with Green and Rodriguez-Marek, conducted fieldwork in Alaska with USACE-CRREL, and introduced a new course on machine learning in civil and environmental engineering.

Additional leadership achievements include Bernardo Castellanos being nominated chair of ASTM Committee D18 and Vantassel’s selection as a U.S. delegate to the 2026 International Young Geotechnical Engineers Conference in Austria.