Conference Chairman

‌Dr. Shamsher Prakash
Professor Emeritus
Missouri University of Science and Technology
prakash@mst.edu

Dr. Prakash is a nationally and internationally recognized geotechnical engineer with an outstanding record of teaching, research and professional service. His professional career started at Roorkee in India and continued to grow in the United States when he went there in 1978. He initiated research on (1) displacement based design of rigid retaining walls under seismic loading, (2) analysis and design of pile foundations under earthquakes and (3) liquefaction of sands with fines at Roorkee (1962-1978). All along, he has vigorously worked for the development of geotechnical engineering and soil dynamics since the beginning of his academic career. He has chaired five international conferences in geotechnical earthquake engineering and soil dynamics and another six on case histories in geotechnical engineering.
He has lectured on geotechnical earthquake engineering worldwide since 1970.
He is a member of more than ten professional societies and fellow of (i) American Society of Civil Engineers, (ii) Institute of Civil Engineers, London, and he has been admitted as an Honorary Fellow of the Indian Society of Earthquake Technology in 2003, and the Indian Geotechnical Society in 2006, for his contribution in Soil Dynamics. His technical committee participation includes soil dynamics committee of ASCE, ASTM D-18, ACI-351, TC-4 on soil dynamics.
He has co-authored four books: “Soil Dynamics”, “Machine Foundation”, “Pile Foundations” and “Fundamentals of Soil Mechanics” as well as approximately 300 papers printed in various professional journals and presented at conferences: http://campus.umr.edu/geotech/people/faculty/prakash.html. He is President of the Shamsher Prakash Foundation which has two annual “Shamsher Prakash Awards”, one for Excellence in Research and the other for Practice of Geotechnical Engineering. Dr. Prakash contributed to another aspect of life by providing a dynamic leadership as a ‘Yoga Teacher’ and authored two books on Yoga and Pranayam: http://www.yoga10.org/.
In recognition of his academic and professional achievements, Dr. Prakash was named a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) in 2011 – this is the Society’s highest accolade. In addition, the Technical University of Civil Engineering, Bucharest Romania, conferred the degree of ‘Doctor, Honoris Causa to Dr. Prakash in 2003, and the University of Illinois (UIUC), has recognized him as a Distinguished Alumnus of Civil Engineering in 2004. The Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, recognized him as a Distinguished Alumnus in 2008.