Robert B. Gilbert to Present 2025 Stanley D. Wilson Memorial Lecture
Shannon & Wilson and the University of Washington's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering are pleased to host the 2025 annual Stanley D. Wilson Memorial Lecture.
This year's Wilson Lecturer, Robert B. Gilbert, PhD, PE, D.GE, NAE, will present “Expect the Unexpected and Act Quickly When it Happens” on Thursday, April 24 at 5:30 PM at the University of Washington Tower Auditorium. Reception to follow.
This event is free to the public. Please RSVP by April 10 to rsvpsea@shanwil.com.
The Stanley D. Wilson Memorial Lecture was established in 1989 to foster and maintain the spirit of thoughtful and practical engineering solutions.
Lecture Highlights
The practice of managing risk is guided by lessons learned from failures and successes. Dr. Gilbert's presentation will describe three recent case histories involving geotechnical, environmental and structural engineering:
- Quality control problems in the construction of drilled shafts that required significant repairs
- Deterioration of a waste containment system that led to release of contaminants
- Structural failure of a 300-m radio telescope that threatened public safety and was a significant loss to the scientific community.
The lessons learned from these case histories include the importance of being ready for things to not go as expected in construction and operation and taking action quickly to address problems when they arise.
About the Lecturer
Robert B. Gilbert, PhD, PE, D.GE, NAE is Chair of the Fariborz Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. He joined the faculty in 1993 after practicing as a geotechnical engineer for five years with Golder Associates Inc. His technical focus is the assessment, evaluation and management of risk for civil engineering systems. He has worked on a variety of large infrastructure projects, including the New Orleans levee system, the east span of the San Francisco Bay Bridge, the Rocky Mountain Arsenal waste disposal project, and many of the world’s largest offshore energy production systems. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2020.
