Carnegie Mellon’s James H. Garrett Jr. Honored by American Society of Civil Engineers

October 6, 2009

Contact: Chriss Swaney
Carnegie Mellon University
412.268.5776

PITTSBURGH-Carnegie Mellon University's James H. Garrett Jr. has been elected a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) for outstanding professional accomplishments and academic excellence.

                
"I am deeply honored by this recognition from my colleagues in the American Society of Civil Engineers," said Garrett, head of Carnegie Mellon's highly ranked Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. "The field of civil and environmental engineering is changing in response to today's challenges to our infrastructure and environment, and I am excited to be a part of a dynamic department researching a number of these challenges. Some of these challenges will ultimately be solved through new research in interdisciplinary areas, such as advanced sensing and informatics, multi-scale modeling, sustainability and nanotechnology."

              
A visionary, Garrett is co-founder of the Center for Sensed Critical Infrastructure Research (CenSCIR), a four-year-old research center developed to deliver "nervous systems" for critical infrastructure. Garrett and his colleagues envision infrastructure with various sensors that feed valuable data to be processed for instant use or future reference.

             
"We want our infrastructure systems to sense aches and pains due to attacks or deterioration, and proactively generate responses in a more timely and cost-effective fashion than we currently see now," said Garrett, who was named Professor of the Year by the Pittsburgh Chapter of the ASCE in 2007.

               
Garrett also has developed mobile hardware and software systems to support information collection and access during construction management and bridge inspection processes.

               
"Jim Garrett continues to be a leader in his contributions toward improving the professional aspects of civil engineering education, and this latest accolade is a wonderful tribute to his many innovative research and academic endeavors," said Pradeep K. Khosla, dean of Carnegie Mellon's College of Engineering.

            
Garrett has received many other prestigious awards, including the ASCE Computing in Civil Engineering Award in 2006 and the 1990 Moisseiff Award for his co-authored paper "Knowledge-Based Standard Independent Member Design."  

                 
A global leader, Garrett received a Humboldt stipend and spent six months at the University of Karlsruhe and the Technical University of Munich in Germany in 1994.  

                 
Prior to becoming department head in 2006, Garrett served as associate dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Engineering. He has been a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering since 1990.   

                 
Garrett received his bachelor's degree (1982), master's degree (1983) and Ph.D. (1986) in civil engineering from Carnegie Mellon.