Lifetime Achievement Medal

Lifetime Achievement Medal

Purpose

The Lifetime Achievement Award was created by the current president of the ISSMGE, Dr Marc Ballouz, in 2022.   

The Lifetime achievement medal is awarded to a person who, by his/her knowledge, involvement, character and achievements, have made considerable and significant contributions to the geotechnical engineers and the geotechnical practice in his country, region or at international level. The award considers contributions over a whole of a career, and for the manner in which their work has touched and shaped the lives and views of many geotechnical engineers.

Up to two medals are offered yearly, respecting geographic diversity.

The ISSMGE President or its regional representative will present the medal to the nominee in person, in his/hers place during a ceremony organized by the national member society.

2023 ISSMGE Lifetime Achievement Medal

Prof. Michele Jamiolkowski (Italy)

Michele Jamiolkowski was appointed to a professorship in the Department of Geotechnical Engineering at the Politechnical University of Torino, at which he has continued to be based throughout his career, being at the time of his nomination and until his death in 20023, Professor Emeritus. In 1979 he was one of the founders of the first doctorate program in geotechnical engineering in Italy, and he pioneered much of the high-quality research in soil mechanics for which Italy is especially well known.

His primary research interests include the mechanical behavior of soils, laboratory and in situ testing, soil dynamics, bearing capacity and settlements of shallow foundations, and soil improvement. He is well-known for his early work on preloading of soft clays and the use of vertical drains for large oil tanks and embankments, and he produced an influential CIRIA report on the topic.

Michele Jamiolkowski has been closely involved with many prestigious consulting projects around the world, but he has been particularly celebrated for his presidency of the International Committee for Safeguarding the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

He holds many awards and honors, among them the De Beer Award from the Belgium Geotechnical Society; the Karl Terzaghi Award and the Ralph B. Peck Lecture Award, both from the ASCE; the Italian Award Savior of the Art.

Prof. Jamiolkowski served as President of the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering from 1994 to 1997.

Michele Jamiolkowski was author of over 270 publications, many of them state-of-the-art keynote lectures or reports.

Prof. Harry Poulos (Australia)

Professor Harry Poulos worked extensively in both academic and geotechnical consultant capacities in a distinguished career spanning almost six decades, being closely associated with both the University of Sydney where he has remained

on the academic staff of the Department of Civil Engineering since 1965 and the Coffey Group (now Tetra Tech Coffey) whom he joined in 1989 as the Director of Advanced Technology and became Chairman of Coffey International Pty Ltd in 1991. In the period 1998 to 2002 he served as Coffey Internationals Director of Technical Innovation and General Manager, Technical Development.

Professor Poulos pioneering work in pile foundation analysis and design has enabled the worlds geotechnical specialists to have a greater understanding of the way structures interact with the ground, leading to a more reliable approach of the pile design.

He has published four books and over 400 technical papers, and his contribution to the profession has been recognised worldwide by the most prestigious awards available in the fields of civil and geotechnical engineering: Rankine Lecture (1989), Terzaghi lecture (2004), Kevin Nash Gold Medal (2005).

Professor Poulos has served as the Australasian Vice-President (1989 1994), and as an appointed ISSMGE Board member (2001 2005), was Chair of the ISSSMGEs Task Force on Education in Geomechanics (1989 - 1993) and Chair of the Committee on Membership, Practitioner and Academicians (2005 - 2013) and of the Technical Committee for Deep Foundations (TC212) (1997 2005).

Prof. Neil Taylor (UK)

2024 ISSMGE Lifetime Achievement Medal

Dr. Suzanne Lacasse (Norway)

Dr. Suzanne Lacasse was Lecturer at Ecole Polytechnique (1973-1975), and then became a faculty member of the Civil Engineering Department at MIT (1975-1983), where she also was Head of the Geotechnical Laboratory. Dr Lacasse was a post-doctoral fellow at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) in 1978, she then joined NGI in 1983. At NGI, she worked on research and consulting assignments, both in Norway and abroad, with secondments in several countries. She became NGI's Managing Director in 1991, a position she held until 2012. Since 2012, she acts as an Expert Adviser at NGI.

Dr Lacasse delivered the Rankine Lecture, Terzaghi Lecture, Terzaghi Oration, as well as Coulomb, Carrillo, Lumb, Jennins and Hardy Lecture. A named lecture on Geotechnical Risk and Reliability was established in her honour by ISSMGE.

Dr. Lacasse did pioneering work on testing of peats and varved clays, she developed methods for in situ testing of soils. She also worked in the design of offshore installations, safety of slopes and reliability aspects of geotechnical calculations. Her expertise is very broad, ranging from advanced testing of geomaterials to numerical and computational modelling.

She has published over 400 technical papers in journals and conferences, 2 books, 5 book chapters and over 20 editorials and discussion articles in newspapers and magazines.

Since 1981, Dr Lacasse has been a member and chair of several Technical Committees of ISSMGE. She served as the chairman of Technical Committee TC14 Offshore Geotechnical Engineering between 1998 and 2001 and the chair of Technical Overview Committee of ISSMGE between 2009 and 2013. She served as President of the Canadian Geotechnical Society in 2003-2004.

Prof. Norbert Morgenstern (Canada)

Prof. Morgenstern has a career spanning over six decades during which he produced internationally award-winning research in dam design, tailing dams, slope stability, arctic engineering and permafrost, pipelines, offshore structures etc.

Since 1983 he was appointed professor at the University of Aberta

In terms of major service to the geotechnical community, he has served the Canadian Geotechnical Society as president from 1989 to 1991 and also as President of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering from 1989 to 1994.

Prof. Morgenstern has been the recipient of numerous awards in recognition of his significant contributions in geotechnical engineering, as delivering the Rankine lecture in 1981, the Legget award (1979), deMello lecture (2018) and many others. The Rankine lecture he delivered brought the worlds attention to frontier resource development engineering as early as 1981, in which he played a pivotal role in the development of oil sands.

He has published 350 papers over his career.

Nomination of candidates

The candidates should be nominated by the national member societies via the regional ISSMGE Vice-presidents.

The call for candidates will be launched once per year and 2 medals will be awarded every year.

Nominations must reach the Secretary General by the announced date on the ISSMGE Website.

Regional ISSMGE Vice-Presidents will pre-evaluate the candidates and communicate the result to AWAC.

AWAC chooses 1 3 candidates from different regions and submit the proposals to ISSMGE board.

ISSMGE board will decide the recipients of the medal.

The application of the national member society should include:

  • A general presentation of the candidate and his/her lifetime activity and achievements with emphasize on the impact of his/her activity on the geotechnical engineers 
  • Argumentation of the national society for this nomination (1 2 pages) based on the criteria here below

Criteria

Eligibility and basic requirements for the award are:

  • The proposed candidate should be a known and recognized member of the ISSMGE community in the country or region or at international level, with a lifetime experience and practice and a major influence on the geotechnical engineers
  • The candidate should have played a significant role in and made substantial contribution to the geotechnical engineering industry in their country. Examples of contributions include, but not limited to:
    • dedicated industry leadership,
    • contribution to innovative industry practice,
    • mentorship of young geotechnical engineers,
    • long term contribution to administration, organization and leadership of geotechnical firms.
    • Long term contribution to local geotechnical societies;
  • The candidate should be alive at the time of the nomination. Particular attention should be given to those who are not able to travel and/or attend international conferences in the field, therefore cannot still present their achievements.
  • Limit of 1 nominee per year per member society. If the nominee is not awarded, the national society can nominate her / him to another call in the next year(s).