Reston , Va. — Bernard Amadei, Ph.D., Dist. M.ASCE, NAE, professor of civil engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder, was recently named a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). ASCE’s highest accolade, distinguished membership recognizes eminence in a branch of engineering and is currently comprised of only 198 of the Society’s 146,000 members worldwide. Amadei will be formally inducted, in honor of his commitment to humanity, which is exemplified through his role in founding Engineers Without Borders-USA , Oct. 29, 2009, at ASCE’s139th Annual Civil Engineering Conference in Kansas City, Mo.
In 2000, Amadei was consulting on a project to bring water to a small Mayan village in Belize. Since the village had no electricity, running water or sanitation, and because most villagers worked at a nearby banana plantation, the responsibility for carrying drinking and irrigation water from a nearby river to the village fell to the local children. Amadei recruited eight University of Colorado civil and environmental engineering students and a Boulder, Colo. civil engineering expert to design a water distribution system.
The entire project was completed in May 2001 with the help of the local community. Based on this successful experience, Amadei launched Engineers Without Borders-USA.
Engineers Without Borders-USA is a large-scale civic program that brings clean water, sanitation and other infrastructure improvements to the developing world. Its mission is to partner with disadvantaged communities to improve their quality of life through implementation of sustainable engineering projects, while involving and training internationally responsible engineering professionals and students.
At the University of Colorado at Boulder, Amadei’s interests are in sustainability and international development. He also directs the Mortenson Center in Engineering for Developing Communities, which seeks to educate globally responsible engineering students and professionals who can offer sustainable and appropriate solutions to the endemic problems faced by developing communities worldwide. He was recently named the Mortenson Chair in Global Engineering.
Amadei was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2008. In 2009, he received the Award of Excellence from Engineering News Record for his work with EWB-USA.
Amadei received his doctorate in civil engineering from the University of California-Berkeley and his master’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Toronto. He is a resident of Lafayette, Colo.
Founded in 1852, the American Society of Civil Engineers represents more than 146,000 civil engineers worldwide and is America’s oldest national engineering society. For more information, visit www.asce.org.
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