The Star: May 30, 2019

CaNTERBURy
RESEaRCHER
WINS TOP US aWaRD
A University of Canterbury engineer’s work on
liquefaction-induced land damage following the
Canterbury earthquakes has been awarded a
prestigious international engineering award.
When the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes created
a city-wide outdoor research laboratory, UC
Civil Engineering Professor Misko Cubrinovski
gathered as much information as possible.
His prolific output of technical reports and case
histories has been recognised by the American
Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), which is
presenting him with the 2019 Ralph B. Peck Award
for “outstanding contributions to the geotechnical
engineering profession through the publication
of several insightful field case histories”. He is
only the second recipient from outside of North
America to receive the ASCE Peck award in its 21-
year history.
Professor Cubrinovski’s career in geotechnical
earthquake engineering began in the 1980s when
he was involved in the seismic design of nuclear
power plants in Europe, with soil liquefaction a
principal concern. He then spent 15 years in Japan,
from 1990, working with pioneering liquefaction
researcher Professor Kenji Ishihara at the
University of Tokyo.
In 2005 Professor Cubrinovski moved to New
Zealand and joined UC, little knowing that
six years later he would be at the centre of an
earthquake event that produced unparalleled
soil liquefaction, which is when a material that is
usually a solid behaves like a liquid.
The ASCE award is the latest international
recognition. Professor Cubrinovski was
part of the teams whose research papers on
liquefaction-induced land damage assessment
in residential Christchurch won the 2016
Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI)
Outstanding Paper Award in San Francisco, the
2016 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
Norman Medal (the society’s highest honour for a
technical paper), the 2018 NZGS Geomechanics
Lecture Award, Outstanding Paper Awards from
ASCE and EERI, the Ivan Skinner Award, and
ANZ Joint Societies Award.
Professor Cubrinovski has authored or coauthored
over 300 technical publications and
worked as a geotechnical specialist and advisor on
over 50 significant engineering projects. He is a
faculty of the Rose School, Pavia, Italy and a Fellow
of the University of Tokyo, Japan, as well as a
Principal Investigator at QuakeCoRE | Te Hiranga
Rū: The New Zealand Centre of Earthquake
Resilience, based at UC, leading the flagship
research programme ‘Liquefaction impacts on
land and infrastructure’.
UC Professor Misko Cubrinovski.
11
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