Contents

George W. Housner

George W. Housner (December 9, 1910 in Saginaw, Michigan – November 10, 2008 in Pasadena, California) was a professor of earthquake engineering at the California Institute of Technology and National Medal of Science laureate.

Biography[edit]

Housner received his bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of Michigan where he was influenced by Stephen Timoshenko.^[2] He earned his masters' (1934) and doctoral (1941) degrees from the California Institute of Technology where he had been a professor of earthquake engineering from 1945 to 1981, and Professor Emeritus thereafter. In 2000, he received an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Southern California.^[4]

Annually, in recognition of those who made extraordinary contributions to the earthquake safety research, practices and policies, EERI awards The George W. Housner Medal of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute.^[5] On his death, Housner left a substantial gift to EERI "to advance the objectives of EERI". This gift has been used to train future earthquake engineering policy advocates and thought leaders through the EERI Housner Fellows Program, which has been active since 2011.^[6]

Housner died of natural causes November 10, 2008 in Pasadena, California at the age of 97.^[7]

Partial list of achievements[edit]

• Chairman of the earthquake engineering research committee of the National Academy of Sciences^[8]
• Founding Member of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute^[9][10]
• UNESCO representative to International Institute of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering in Tokyo^[11]
• AEC advisory panel on safety against ground shock^[12]
• AID consultant at University of Roorkee, India^[13]
• Chairman of Geologic Hazards Advisory Committee for Organization for the California State Resources Agency^[14][15]
• Chairman of Panel on Aseismic Design and Testing of Nuclear Facilities for International Atomic Energy Agency^[16]
• Member of Los Angeles County Earthquake Commission^[17]
• Member of Earthquake Engineering and Hazards Reduction Delegation to People's Republic of China^[18]
• Consultant to Japanese Atomic Energy Commission and Italian Nuclear Energy Commission and numerous nuclear energy projects in the U.S.^[19]
• Elected to National Academy of Sciences 1972^[20]
• Named Braun Professor of Engineering at Caltech 1974^[21][22]
• Chairman of Earthquake Earthquake Engineering Committee and the Committee on Dam Safety of the National Research Council (NRC) ^[23]
• Delivered second Mallet-Milne memorial lecture for Society for Earthquake and Civil Engineering Dynamics in London, 1989^[24]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• CUREE (1995), The CUREE Symposium in Honor of George Housner (PDF), Pasadena, California: Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering, archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-02-05
• George W. Housner, Connections: The EERI Oral History Series. Oakland, CA: Earthquake Engineering Research Institute. 1997. ISBN 0-943 198-58-5. Retrieved 21 April 2024.
• Housner, G. W. (2002), "Historical view of earthquake engineering", International Handbook of Earthquake and Engineering Seismology, International Geophysics, vol. 81, pp. 13–18, doi:10.1016/S0074-6142(02)80205-4, ISBN 9780124406520
• Jennings, P. C. (2009), "George W. Housner (1910–2008)", Seismological Research Letters, 80 (2): 192–195, doi:10.1785/gssrl.80.2.192
• Reitherman, R. (2012). Earthquakes and Engineers: An International History. American Society of Civil Engineers. ISBN 978-0-7844-1071-4.