UMR researcher receives award for earthquake-related work

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On October 22, 2004

Dave Hoffman, a research engineer at UMR, recently received the Otto Nuttli Award from the St. Louis Chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers. The award is named for the late Otto Nuttli, a former professor of seismology at St. Louis University, who was the reigning expert on the New Madrid Seismic Zone.

"Dave Hoffman has been the ‘point man’ for seismic hazards awareness for the past decade, being the only geologist or engineer assigned the specific task of evaluating potential seismic hazards in the Missouri Geological Survey," says Dr. J. David Rogers, the Karl F. Hasselmann Chair in Geological Engineering at UMR. "He pioneered the investigation of seismic shaking propensity of various sites in the upper Mississippi Embayment of southeast Missouri and in the St. Louis metro area. This work is crucial to modeling and estimating the potentially devastating effects of any future earthquake."

Hoffman is currently working on two projects with Dr. Ronaldo Luna, associate professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering. "It’s like Dave wears two hats," explains Luna. "He’s both a registered geologist and a registered engineer. He’s unique because there’s not a lot of civil engineers that are also geologists."

Prior to joining UMR in May, Hoffman worked for 25 years for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, spending 23 years with the Missouri Geological Survey.

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On October 22, 2004. Posted in Research