STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING
Kavanagh Lecture - Biographical Sketch
The Twelfth Thomas C. Kavanagh Memorial Structural Engineering Lecture
April 7, 2005
7:30 pm
Applied Research Laboratory Auditorium
Use of Strain-hardening Fiber Reinforced Concrete in Earthquake-resistant
Design: Example of Shear Wall Coupling Beams
by
James K. Wight
Professor of Civil Engineering
University of Michigan
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
James K. Wight received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Civil Engineering from Michigan State University in 1969 and 1970, and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1973. He has been a professor in the structural engineering area of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Michigan since September 1973. He teaches undergraduate and graduate classes on structural analysis and design of reinforced concrete structures. He is well known both nationally and internationally for his work in earthquake-resistant design of concrete structures. He spent a one-year sabbatical leave (1980-81) in Japan, and has been involved with post-earthquake damage studies following earthquakes in Mexico City, Chile, Armenia, Egypt, California, Japan, and India.
At Michigan, Professor Wight has received numerous awards for his teaching, including: the ASCE Student Chapter Teacher of the Year Award (eight times), the College of Engineering's Teaching Excellence Award, the State of Michigan Award for Outstanding Teaching, and the Chi Epsilon-Great Lakes District Excellence in Teaching Award.
Professor Wight has been an active member of the American Concrete Institute since 1973, and was named a Fellow of the Institute in 1984. He is currently Chairman for the ACI Building Code Committee 318 and a former member of the ACI Board of Directors. He has received the following awards from the American Concrete Institute: Delmar Bloem Distinguished Service Award (1991), the Joe Kelly Award for “outstanding efforts for the education of students in design of reinforced concrete structures” (1999), the Boise Award for “outstanding accomplishments in research, teaching and service in the field of structural concrete” (2002), and the Structural Research Award (2003) for a paper he co-authored with his former student, Professor Carlos G. Quintero-Febres.
