STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING
Kavanagh Lecture - Biographical Sketch
The Tenth Annual Thomas C. Kavanagh Memorial Structural Engineering Lecture
April 4, 2002
7:30 pm
Applied Research Laboratory Auditorium
Learning from Collapses: From Oklahoma City to the World Trade Center
by
Dr. W. Gene Corley
Senior Vice President
Construction Technology Laboratories, Inc.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
W. Gene Corley earned a B.S. degree in civil engineering and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in structural engineering, all from the University of Illinois in Urbana. He then served for three years with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers before going to work for the Portland Cement Association (PCA) in 1964. In 1987, he was appointed vice president of Construction Technology Laboratories, Inc., in Skokie, Illinois, a subsidiary of the PCA, and he is currently senior vice president of that organization.
Dr. Corley is an active member of the National Academy of Engineering, an Honorary Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and a member of several other engineering societies. He is the Past President of the National Council of Structural Engineers Associations, and Past Chairman of the ASCE Council on Forensic Engineering. He chaired the committee that in 1995 developed the Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete, and he has authored over one hundred and fifty articles and books dealing with the subjects of structural design and behavior.
For more than two decades, Dr. Corley has served as a researcher and consultant over a wide range of topics for building and bridge construction. His expertise includes material behavior, fatigue of structural concrete, and earthquake and blast effects on buildings and bridges.
Dr. Corley was Principal Investigator for the ASCE and the Federal Emergency and Management Administration (FEMA) on the investigation of the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City, and he has been named Lead Member of ASCE's Building Performance Team investigating the collapse of the World Trade Center. In addition, Dr. Corley has done investigations of earthquake damage in Central America, South America, Japan, and California.
Dr. Corley is licensed as a Structural Engineer in Illinois and holds Professional Engineering
licenses in 15 states.
