The Geo-Institute (G-I) is a membership organization focused on geoprofessionals and the geo-industry. It was created by the American Society of Civil Engineers in October 1996 as one of ASCE's specialty Institutes and has more than 60 chapters throughout the United States. The mission of the Boston Chapter of G-I is to foster continuing education and to provide a venue for the sharing of knowledge between engineers, geologists, and contractors in the geotechnical community. The G-I Boston Chapter typically organizes and leads the following activities:
Currently, the G-I Boston Chapter executive committee consists of fifteen geotechnical professionals from local consulting firms, specialty construction companies, and academic institutions, who proudly volunteer their time to serve the BSCES and the engineering community.
As with most organizations, 2020 and much of 2021 was a challenging period for our chapter due to the pandemic. The lack of opportunities for in-person meetings limited the group’s activities and required that many of the planned events during this period be postponed. However, despite those challenges, we were delighted in June 2020 to award a scholarship through the Leo Casagrande Fund. The Leo Casagrande Memorial Fund was established by the BSCES in 1990 in honor of Dr. Leo Casagrande to provide a scholarship to a senior undergraduate or graduate geotechnical engineering student at a Massachusetts college or university. The scholarship was awarded to Sarah Condon, who is working toward her BS/MS degree concurrently at Northeastern University and is scheduled to graduate this year. This Casagrande scholarship was the first awarded in several years and Sarah’s commitment to the geotechnical field and excellent reputation made her a very deserving recipient of this award. We look forward to offering a Casagrande scholarship to a Massachusetts geotechnical engineering student again in 2022.
As part of BSCES’s lunchtime webinar series, Dr. Juan M. Pestana gave a presentation on behalf of the G-I Boston Chapter in May of 2021 on “Applications of Numerical Modeling in Current Geotechnical Engineering Practice.” We greatly appreciated Dr. Pestana’s presentation on the state of practice of geotechnical modeling to the broader BSCES community. In addition, both Dr. Pestana and Dr. Lucy Jen, a former G-I Boston Chapter chair, were also recently appointed as professors of the practice within the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Tufts University. Congratulations to both.
The G-I Boston Chapter has a number of webinars, dinner lectures, and other activities planned for the upcoming year. Dr. Theresa Andrejack-Loux and Benjamin Cote, the technical director and technical sales manager of AeroAggregates of North America, respectively, recently held the latest installment of the BSCES lunchtime webinar series on December 15, 2021. The title of the presentation was “Foamed Glass Aggregate for Ultra-Lightweight Fill Applications.” Ultra-Lightweight Foamed Glass Aggregate (UL-FGA) is a lightweight fill alternative that is increasingly being used on infrastructure, commercial, and residential projects, including in the Boston area. This presentation focused on the physical and engineering properties of UL-FGA, application areas, design considerations, and greater-Boston case studies from projects that have utilized Ul-FGA in design and construction.
The G-I Boston Chapter hopes to hold an in-person event for the Arthur Casagrande Memorial Lecture Series on March 31, 2022. This Lecture Series was established in 1983 and is typically given every other year by an eminent engineer with longstanding achievements in practice, teaching, and/or research in geotechnical engineering. The most recent Arthur Casagrande Memorial Lecture was given in 2018 by Dr. Bengt Fellenius. Unfortunately, the latest installment of the lecture series had to be postponed in 2020 due to the pandemic but we are excited to have Professor Patricia J. Culligan presenting the 18th Casagrande Lecture. Professor Culligan is the current Matthew H. McCloskey Dean of the University of Notre Dame's College of Engineering and recently received the 2021 H. Bolton Seed Medal for expanding boundaries of geoenvironmental and sustainability engineering. The title of the upcoming lecture will be “Green Infrastructure for Urban Stormwater Adaptation.”
The G-I Boston Chapter will also be holding the 4th Charles C. Ladd Lecture on May 12, 2022, which will be given by Dr. Don J. DeGroot. Dr. DeGroot is a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The subject of 4th Ladd Lecture will be announced in the spring of 2022.
Finally, we are looking forward to an in-person dinner lecture (if conditions allow) to be given by Dr. Laurie Baise, a professor in and the chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Tufts School of Engineering. She is a member of the Geosystems faculty, lead investigator in the Geohazards Research Lab, and the director of the BSCE degree program. The topic and date of Dr. Baise’s lecture will also be announced in early 2022.
Our chapter is always looking for additional members – geotechnical practitioners in the public or private sector or educators who are interested in getting involved in our executive committee’s activities and promoting our mission. If you have interest in becoming involved with the G-I Boston Chapter, please reach out to me at Geo.Institute@bsces.org or contact any one of our members.
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