STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING
Kavanagh Lecture - Biographical Sketch
The Seventh Annual Thomas C. Kavanagh Memorial Structural Engineering Lecture
April 8, 1999
7:30 pm
Applied Research Laboratory Auditorium
Stability Research and Practice: History of the Last Fifty Years
by
Dr. Theodore V. Galambos
Emeritus Professor of Structural Engineering
University of Minnesota
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Dr. Theodore V. Galambos received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of North Dakota in 1953 and 1954, respectively. He then went on to study at Lehigh University, where he received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering in 1959. He currently is Emeritus Professor of Structural Engineering at the University of Minnesota.
His academic career began at Lehigh University, where he served first as assistant professor and then associate professor from 1959 to 1965. He then joined the faculty of Washington University in St. Louis in 1965 as professor, in which capacity he served until 1981. At Washington University, Dr. Galambos served as department chairman from 1970 to 1981. In 1981, he moved to the University of Minnesota, where he served as professor of structural engineering until his retirement in 1996.
Dr. Galambos has been on the cutting edge of research in the behavior and design of steel structures for more than three decades. He has been a major player in the area of stability of steel structures and a pioneer in the field of reliability of structures. He has been a dominant figure in the establishment of structural design standards, and, in fact, modern steel design, with its emphasis on load and resistance factor design, enjoys its present status much through the efforts of Dr. Galambos.
Dr. Galambos has authored numerous technical articles. He has also authored three texttbooks--he was the sole author of the classic Structural Members and Frames, he coauthored Basic Steel Design with Johnston and Lin, and he is the lead author of Basic Steel Design in LRFD with the late Bruce Johnston and Lin. In addition, Dr. Galambos served as the editor for two editions of the Structural Stability Research Council Guide.
Dr. Galambos has received many honors in recognition of his contributions to the field of structural engineering. He was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 1979 and was made an honorary member of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1990. He received a Doctor Honoris Causa in 1982 from the University of Budapest, and was similarly granted the degree of Honorary Doctor of Engineering from the University of North Dakota in 1998. He was the recipient of the prestigious T. H. Higgins Award of the American Institute of Steel Construction in 1980, and of the Ernest E. Howard Award of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1992.
