Hajjar Honored with Lynn S. Beedle Award from Structural Stability Research Council
CEE Chair & CDM Smith Professor Jerome F. Hajjar received the SSRC Lynn S. Beedle Award from the Structural Stability Research Council. He also was elected president of the Structural Engineering Institute, with his term beginning on October 1, 2023.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Tanner Stening. Main photo: Northeastern CDM Smith professor and chair Jerome Hajjar. Photo by Alyssa Stone/Northeastern University
Jerome Hajjar, the CDM Smith Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northeastern, is going to be busy in the coming months. He’s been tapped to receive the 2024 Lynn S. Beedle Award from the Structural Stability Research Council for his lifetime achievement, and is set to become the president of the Structural Engineering Institute (SEI), the largest institute under the umbrella of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The Lynn S. Beedle Award was established to honor the late Lynn S. Beedle, who was “an international authority on stability and the development of code criteria for steel and composite structures,” the council’s website says.
As part of the award, Hajjar will deliver a presentation at the council’s annual conference, slated for March 2024 in San Antonio.
“This is certainly a great, unexpected honor,” Hajjar tells Northeastern Global News.
More than a year ago, Hajjar was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
Hajjar says he had met Beedle, who founded the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, a premier global nonprofit focused on supporting sustainable cities amid the threat of climate change worldwide. He says Beedle, who was on the faculty of Lehigh University, was a leading researcher on steel structures and was the advisor to many renowned engineers, including Hajjar’s colleague and close friend, Theodore V. Galambos, regarded as one of the most preeminent steel researchers and educators of his generation.
The award is given to thought leaders who “have carried out world-class research in the field of structural stability and have also made outstanding and decisive contributions to establish SSRC as [a] world leading structural stability organization,” Daniel Linzell, chair of the council, wrote to Hajjar.
“Professor Hajjar is an outstanding scholar and leader and we are so proud to see his accomplishments recognized internationally,” says Gregory D. Abowd, dean of Northeastern’s College of Engineering. “He brings great recognition to the College of Engineering and Northeastern.”
The award comes as Hajjar gets ready to take on another appointment at the helm of SEI, which has more than 30,000 members and works to improve “every aspect of the structural engineering profession.”
“Some of the initiatives that SEI is doing and I’ll be a champion of during my term are issues related to sustainability, resilience and equity,” Hajjar says. “I’d like to encourage all structural engineers to make these three topics — sustainability, resilience and equity — premier design objectives guiding all of their designs.”
Read full story at Northeastern Global News
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