Geotechnical faculty
Ensuring a strong foundation to build on
Our faculty are experts in the behavior and structural interconnected properties between soil, rock, concrete and other man-made materials with research focusing on soil behavior, ground improvement, environmental effects in pavement design, bio-geotechnical engineering, geotechnical earthquake engineering, sustainable geotechnics, interdisciplinary geotechnics, waste containment system design and mechanical properties of municipal solid waste.
Our researchers also focus on development of sustainable nature-based solutions to mitigate risks associated with soil systems in civil infrastructure and agriculture, bio-inspired burrowing mechanisms and geosystems, smart, sustainable geosystems, material behavior, fatigue and damage in engineering structures, as well as infrastructural design and behavior under transportation, environmental and other dynamic loads in geotechnical engineering,
Faculty also are known for their research in engineering education, engineering geology, geotechnical and geo-environmental engineering, environmental biotechnology, construction microbial biotechnology, engineered living systems and materials, fungi-mediated and fungi-inspired technologies, soil erosion mitigation and interdisciplinary nature-based engineering.
Edward Kavazanjian
Regents’ Professor
School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment
Professor Kavazanjian’s expertise includes geotechnical engineering for infrastructure development, with a focus on seismic design, waste properties and waste containment system design, and biogeotechnical ground improvement.
Hamed Khodadadi Tirkolaei
Assistant Professor
School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment
Khodadadi Tirkolaei’s research interests include Geotechnical Engineering, Sustainability in Geotechnical Engineering, and Biogeotechnical Engineering.
Jean Larson
Program Director and Research Associate Professor
School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment
Larson focuses on engineering education, effective transfer of knowledge and learning techniques, interdisciplinary collaboration and the bridge between K-12 learning and higher education engineering content.
Nariman Mahabadi
Assistant Professor
School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment
Nariman Mahabadi Mahabad looks forward to teaching the foundations of engineering, bio-inspired geotechnics and numerical methods in geotechnical engineering.
Jafar Razmi
Associate Research Professor
School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment
His interests are in material behavior, fatigue and damage in engineering structures, infrastructural design and behavior under transportation, environmental, and other dynamic loads and additive manufacturing.
Emmanuel Salifu
Assistant Professor
School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment
Salifu leads interdisciplinary (Ag-Env-Bio-Geotech) engineering research in the development of sustainable nature-based solutions to mitigate risks associated with soil systems in civil infrastructure and agriculture.
Junliang Tao
Associate Professor
School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment
His research focuses on Bio-inspired Geotechnics (BiG). His current research topics include include bio-inspired burrowing mechanisms and robots, bio-inspired geosystems, smart and sustainable geosystems and soil behavior.
Leon van Paassen
Associate Research Professor Non-Exempt
School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment
Van Paassen’s research interests are engineering geology, geotechnical and geo-environmental engineering, environmental biotechnology, soil mechanics and ground improvement.
Claudia Zapata
Associate Professor
School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment
Zapata’s research focuses on unsaturated and expansive soils, soil behavior under static/repeated loads, fluid flow and volume change modeling, environmental impacts, and soil improvement.