ASCE has honored Brady R. Cox, Ph.D., P.E., A.M.ASCE, with the 2024 Shamsher Prakash Award and Lecture for significant contributions to soil dynamics and geotechnical earthquake engineering, including development of dynamic in situ tests for advanced soil liquefaction evaluations, efforts to quantify uncertainty in surface wave methods, and investigating the spatial area that influences seismic site response.
Cox has led efforts nationally and internationally to quantify uncertainty in surface wave methods used for dynamic site characterization. He has published many journal articles on the topic of quantifying uncertainty in surface wave methods and on propagating uncertainty in Vs from surface wave methods into seismic ground response analyses. Over the past several years his work has made breakthroughs resulting in significant journal publications on this topic. His research team has developed several opensource Python packages to assist researchers and practitioners in implementing our surface wave processing methods.
Cox is also a gifted researcher. He has made significant contributions to the field of geotechnical engineering and possesses outstanding potential for making future contributions to the profession. He starts with the sound grasp of the fundamentals in his area of study. He first focuses on understanding and characterizing the governing phenomena and then looks for ways to apply deeper understanding to solve problems of importance.
He is one of a select group of researchers who conduct the type of work he is doing and make a significant impact. Cox has established himself as one of the top professors in the field of civil engineering under the age of 50. He is performing and publishing innovative and important research. He has the potential to make lasting significant impacts in many disciplines of civil engineering. There is no one in his peer group who possesses his combination of intellect, knowledge, and skills in applied engineering geophysics.
The Shamsher Prakash Award and Lecture was instituted by the Board of Direction in 2021 to recognize outstanding research or professional practice contributions in the area of geotechnical engineering or soil dynamics.
