Lee to receive
Newmark Medal
By ELLEN
GOLDBAUM
News Services Editor
The American
Society of Civil Engineers has chosen George C. Lee, Samuel P. Capen Professor
of Engineering and director of the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake
Engineering Research (MCEER) at UB, to receive the prestigious Nathan
M. Newmark Medal for 2000.
Lee will
receive the award later this month at the 14th Engineering Mechanics Conference
being held in Austin, Texas.
The national
medal, sponsored by the ASCE's Engineering Mechanics Division and its
Structural Engineering Institute, is given to an ASCE member who, through
contributions in structural mechanics, has helped substantially to strengthen
the scientific base of structural engineering.
Lee is cited
for his achievements in both research, where he has made major contributions
to the study and practice of making steel buildings safer during earthquakes,
and education, where he was an early player in the move to build a program
in earthquake engineering at UB, now one of the nation's most acclaimed.
In research,
Lee is honored "for his work on plastic analysis of structures and his
research and leadership in aseismic design of structural and mechanical
systems."
Among the
original contributions ASCE cites are those to the field of steel structures,
including stability and design of thin-wall structural members; inelastic
behavior of structural steel under cyclic and nonproportional dynamic
loading; a two-surface plasticity model; post-buckling strength; low cycle
fatigue and damage accumulation of thin-walled steel structural members
under dynamic and earthquake loading conditions, and formulation of principles
and guidelines for the seismic retrofit of steel buildings with added
passive and semi-active vibration-reduction technologies. Lee also is
recognized for the development of a state-of-the-art, semi-active, vibration-reduction
system-conceived from human body-motion control behavior-resulting in
an invention developed with colleagues Z. Liang and M. Tong that was licensed
by Enidine, Inc.
The citation
credits Lee with being a prime mover in the drive to establish earthquake-engineering
education and research programs at UB, beginning in the 1970s.
"Convinced
of the need of civil engineers in the eastern U.S. to be knowledgeable
in earthquake engineering, he overcame many objections to pursue this
development as department chair and, subsequently, as dean of engineering,
until the earthquake-engineering research laboratory with an earthquake
ground-motion simulator was completed in 1981 by the State of New York,"
the citation states.
As a result,
the programs that were developed at UB in earthquake engineering "enabled
UB to become the first NSF-sponsored national center of earthquake engineering
research, which (Lee) presently serves as the center director."
A member
of the UB faculty since 1961, Lee served as dean of the School of Engineering
and Applied Sciences from 1977-95.
In addition
to fostering research and educational advancements in engineering, Lee
has been active in conducting outreach programs for students and the business
community. He directed the university's Greater Regional Industrial Technology
program, designed to help area businesses develop new products. He also
founded the Engineering Career Institute, a summer program designed to
supplement the technical education of UB engineering students.
He launched
the Buffalo Engineering Awareness for Minorities, a major effort to encourage
minority students to pursue careers in engineering.
Front Page | Top Stories | Briefly | Q&A | The Mail | Photos
Sports | Exhibits, Jobs, Notices | Events | Current Issue | Comments?
Archives | Search | UB Home | UB News Services | UB Today