RESTON, Va. - The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) today announced its 2025 class of Distinguished Members, which is the highest honor the Society can bestow upon a member. This year’s class includes 11 of ASCE’s most distinguished and active members who have made significant contributions to civil engineering throughout their careers. Of ASCE’s more than 160,000 active members worldwide, only a few hundred have been honored as a Distinguished Member. This honor is reserved for those who have attained eminence within the realm of engineering, whether that be construction, related arts and sciences, or engineering education. ASCE inducts a new class of Distinguished Members annually.

“These Distinguished Members have spent decades advancing and innovating the civil engineering profession, along with countless hours volunteering their expertise to improve the systems we all rely on, mentoring and teaching students and professionals as they advance, and most importantly improving the public health, safety, and welfare of people around the world,” said ASCE President Feniosky A. Peña-Mora, Sc.D, P.E.(DR), NAS(DR), CCM(UK), F.CIOB(UK), NAC(US), Dist.M.ASCE(US). “Each of these honorees has earned the Society’s highest membership honor, and I look forward to honoring their accomplishments and contributions to civil engineering when they are formally inducted as Distinguished Members.”

  • Burcu H. Akinci, Ph.D., NAC, F.AAAS, Dist.M.ASCE, department head of civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and a Hamerschlag University professor, is honored for pioneering groundbreaking research to advance and shape facility and construction information systems through innovative building information data management. She has integrated building information models with data capture technologies, such as 3D imaging and embedded sensors, to create digital twins of construction projects and infrastructure operations and has developed approaches to support proactive and predictive operations and management. Her start-up company, LeanFM, uses AI software to improve maintenance operations by finding root causes and insights related to HVAC faults.
  • Reginald DesRoches, Ph.D., F.SEI, NAE, Dist.M.ASCE, president of Rice University and professor of both civil and environmental engineering and mechanical engineering, is honored for contributions to the development of national policies on disaster mitigation and community resiliency. DesRoches is leading significant growth at Rice, increasing the student body by 30% and establishing new majors, while increasing research activities at the school. In 2010, DesRoches was the technical leader for the U.S.’s response to the Haiti earthquake, leading 28 engineers, architects, city planners, and social scientists to study the devastating impact of the disaster on the country. His work includes the first comprehensive study on seismic vulnerability for the most common types of bridges in the Central and Southeastern United States, which resulted in changes in practice for the design and construction of bridges.
  • Brendan M. Harley, Sc.D., P.H., CEng., Dist.M.ASCE, a former MIT professor and co-founder of Resource Analysis Inc., is honored for fostering the development of advanced hydrologic and hydrogeological modeling tools over the course of his 50-year career. His career in academia included the development of the MIT Catchment Model, a digital method of simulating rainfall runoff from the land surface, and being a pioneer in early, leading-edge tools for project-oriented language-model input instructions and 3D/4D color graphics. He and three MIT colleagues later established RAI, where he served as President. After CDM Smith acquired RAI in 1978, with Harley as senior vice president, he helped establish it as the industry leader it is today, including the development of the DYNSYSTEM of groundwater modeling codes which address all aspects of flow and transport in three-dimensional aquifer systems. Dr. Harley spearheaded the development of urban water supply and quality control strategies for numerous major metropolitan areas throughout the United States, and several overseas countries, particularly Singapore. There, Dr. Harley led the planning, design, and construction of Singapore’s iconic Marina Barrage.
  • David W. Johnston, Ph.D., P.E., NAC, Hon.M.ACI, Dist.M.ASCE, the Edward I. Weisiger distinguished professor emeritus in construction engineering at North Carolina State University, is recognized for his advancement of civil and construction engineering through bridge management research, formwork design and safety, and construction planning of linear projects. Johnston is also recognized for being a leader in construction engineering education, accreditation, and efforts to have all state engineering licensing boards recognize construction engineering as a discipline in the CE professional engineering exam. He established master’s and doctoral construction engineering specialties at NC State, while also maintaining ABET accreditation of the undergraduate construction engineering degree program.
  • Eva Lerner-Lam, NAE, Dist.M.ASCE, founder and president of Palisades Consulting Group Inc., is honored for her international leadership in advancing transportation technologies, standards, policies, and professional services. Lerner-Lam was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2023 “for accelerating adoption of intelligent transportation systems and smart cities codes and standards into engineering practice.” She has advised not only the Federal Transportation Administration but also many state and local transportation agencies, such as New Jersey Transit Corporation, Rhode Island Transit Authority, Miami-Dade County Transit, Seattle King County Metro, Washington WMATA, Corpus Christi Transportation Authority, and many others. Early in her career, Lerner-Lam was a planner on the start-up of the San Diego Trolley and later served as director of planning and operations for the San Diego Metropolitan Transit Development Board.
  • Sankaran Mahadevan, Ph.D., F.EMI, Dist.M.ASCE, the John R. Murray Sr. professor of civil and environmental engineering at Vanderbilt University, is honored for outstanding research and educational contributions to risk, reliability, and uncertainty analysis and management of engineering systems, as well as outstanding professional service and leadership in ASCE, including as president of the Engineering Mechanics Institute. His research spans computational methods development, experimental investigation, and practical applications. During the past decade he has been at the forefront of academic research on digital twin methodologies for aircraft, rotorcraft, ship structures, and additive manufacturing, and for complex systems such as air transportation and the power grid. His research has been extensively funded by multiple government agencies such as NSF, NASA, DOE, DOD, FAA, and NIST, as well as by industrial organizations such as Airbus, GM, Chrysler, GE, Union Pacific, ABS, Northrop Grumman, Rolls-Royce, and Mitsubishi.
  • Gregs G. Thomopulos, P.E., Dist.M.ASCE, chairman emeritus of Stanley Consultants, is honored for his eminence in domestic and international civil engineering, demonstrating tireless advocacy for quality, sustainability, integrity, and ethics in global infrastructure and for elevating the stature of consulting engineering worldwide. He served with Stanley for 51 years, rising from intern to chair of the board. His global reach has included engineering projects in more than 35 countries. His firm has executed projects in over 100 countries and achieved numerous milestones, including sustainably expanding rural electricity in the Philippines, surface water treatment in Jordan, and wastewater treatment in Egypt and Yemen. Thomopulos’ leadership and vision have not only driven the success of Stanley Consultants but have also set a benchmark for the industry. Under his leadership, the company’s revenue more than doubled from under $100 million to over $200 million annually. Thomopulos was president of the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) from 2009 to 2011 and was chairman of American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) in 2013. He is a registered professional engineer in seven states and Puerto Rico. In 2011, he received ASCE’s OPAL leadership award in management. He received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 2022.
  • Erol Tutumluer, Ph.D., Dist.M.ASCE, the Abel Bliss Professor specializing in transportation geotechnics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is honored for his leadership, education, innovation, and mentorship in transportation, geotechnical, and civil engineering. He is a pioneer in transportation geotechnics, in which he develops and implements geomechanics principles for the analysis and design of transportation facilities, such as highway and airfield pavements and railway track structures. Through his work, Tutumluer employs fundamentals of geomechanics and applies new technologies such as artificial intelligence, smart sensors, and computer vision for infrastructure monitoring. He has pioneered innovative research and techniques for achieving smart, sustainable, and resilient infrastructure systems. Tutumluer has received numerous awards, including the 2020 ASCE James Laurie Prize, Geo-Institute’s 2021 Carl L. Monismith Lecture Award, the 2023 International Geosynthetics Society Award, and the 2024 ASCE Francis C. Turner Lecture Award. He is an outstanding mentor to his students and has graduated 27 doctoral and 47 master’s students. Tutumluer has been involved with more than 125 externally funded research projects and has published more than 400 peer-reviewed papers.
  • Franz-Josef Ulm, Ph.D., NAE, F.EMI, Dist.M.ASCE, the Class of 1922 professor of civil and environmental engineering and faculty director of the Concrete Sustainability Hub at Massachusetts Institute of Technology is honored for his contributions to the nano- and micromechanics of heterogeneous materials, including cement, concrete, rock, and bone, with applications in sustainable infrastructure, underground energy harvesting, and human health. Ulm’s work has led to the development of environmentally sustainable concrete solutions, directly addressing global climate challenges while maintaining structural integrity. His research has led to practical recommendations and solutions to help better understand the life-cycle of concrete. His service to ASCE includes current editorship of the Journal of Engineering Mechanics, member of the Board of Governors of Engineering Mechanics Institute (2008-2012), head of EMI’s Awards Committee (2013-16), and chair of the 2018 EMI Annual Conference, held at MIT (2018).
  • Jonathan E. Upchurch, Ph.D., P.E., PTOE (Ret.), Dist.M.ASCE, a professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering at Arizona State University, is honored for his many contributions to the civil engineering profession including exemplary and tireless service and leadership in national professional organizations, research, and leadership in traffic control devices, policy, and civil engineering history. One of his major contributions to the profession is his work with the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, which makes recommendations to the Federal Highway Administration to establish standards for uniformity, appearance, application, and installation of road signs, markings, and other traffic control devices. Upchurch also applied his five decades of professional experience to develop many of ASCE’s public policies that apply to the profession worldwide and benefit all Society members. He has volunteered in many leadership roles for the profession, including serving as the elected international president of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), as well as on 13 committees or panels for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Upchurch has also worked extensively to help tell the story of civil engineering history to the public.
  • Andrew S. Whittaker, Ph.D., P.E., F.SEI, Dist.M.ASCE, is a SUNY distinguished professor in the department of civil, structural, and environmental engineering at the University at Buffalo. He is recognized for a career that has focused on protecting lives and mission-critical infrastructure by advancing the practice of earthquake, blast, impact, and performance-based engineering. Whittaker is known worldwide for his publications, mentorship, innovative design consulting, and contributions to design standards for buildings and essential structures. Whittaker’s career is notable for his ability to combine rigorous theory with computational methods and experimental testing with an emphasis on advancing engineering practice. Whittaker served as vice president and president of the Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering from 2003 to 2011 and on the Boards of Directors of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute and the World Seismic Safety Initiative from 2008 to 2011. Currently, he serves on the Board of Directors for the NGO TerraPraxis. Whittaker is a Fellow of SEI and ACI. His awards include the ASCE 2016 Stephen D. Bechtel Jr. Energy Award, 2017 Walter P. Moore Jr. Award, 2023 Nathan M. Newmark Medal, and the American Nuclear Society’s 2023 Untermyer & Cisler Reactor Technology Medal.

The eleven new Distinguished Members of ASCE will be formally inducted on October 10 at the annual OPAL Gala at the 2025 ASCE Convention in Seattle.

About the American Society of Civil Engineers

Founded in 1852, the American Society of Civil Engineers represents more than 160,000 civil engineers worldwide and is America's oldest national engineering society. ASCE works to raise awareness of the need to maintain and modernize the nation's infrastructure using sustainable and resilient practices, advocates for increasing and optimizing investment in infrastructure, and improve engineering knowledge and competency. For more information, visit www.asce.org or www.infrastructurereportcard.org and follow us on Twitter, @ASCETweets and @ASCEGovRel.