Awards

Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl

Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, professor of civil engineering, has been named the winner of the T.R. Higgins Lectureship Award presented by the American Institute of Steel Construction. Astaneh-Asl is well known in the steel design and construction industry for his work on seismic design.

The Higgins Award, presented annually, recognizes an outstanding lecturer and author whose technical papers contribute to engineering literature on fabricated structural steel. In addition to the award itself, the winner receives a $5,000 prize.

For his Higgins lecture, Astaneh-Asl will present a new paper, "Seismic Performance and Design of Bolted Steel Moment-Resisting Frames," at the 1998 National Steel Construction Conference in New Orleans April 3.

He will also present the lecture at least six other times at locations around the country.

Based on more than 14 years of research and development, his paper discusses how bolted steel moment-resisting frames have performed in past earthquakes and laboratory tests, possible explanations for their performance record, and design procedures to follow in their manufacture.

Astaneh-Asl received his MS in civil engineering in Iran from Tehran Polytechnic in 1968. After a decade as a structural engineer and construction manager in Tehran, he received a MS and PhD in structural engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He joined the Berkeley faculty in 1996.

Since the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, Astaneh-Asl has conducted research and development projects on seismic design and retrofit of a number of bridges including the Golden Gate, Richmond-San Rafael, Carquinez and Hayward-San Mateo.


Donald Mastronarde

The American Philological Association recently honored Donald J. Mastronarde, professor and chair of classics, with the prestigious Charles J. Goodwin Award of Merit for 1997 for his book Euripides: Phoenissae, edited with Introduction and Commentary.

The Goodwin Award is the only honor for scholarly achievement given by the association and is presented in recognition of an outstanding contribution to classical scholarship published by a member of the association within the previous three years.

"Phoenissae" is a tragedy produced in Athens about 410 B.C.E. and is a prime example of the experimentation and variety that characterize the works of Euripides in the last decade of his life.

The selection committee praised Mastronarde's book as "an invaluable introduction not only to the study of the play itself, but also to the work and dramatic art of Euripides."

"His detailed observations and extensive citations of the scholarly literature," it said, "cannot fail to enlighten anyone who consults the commentary for a particular word or issue. But the commentary also serves as a sensitive and intelligent guide to the literary and dramatic issues raised by this complicated and foreign play, and as such will serve as a continuing resource for all students of Euripides, now and for many decades in the future."

The Goodwin Award is presented at the association's annual meeting.


Henry J. Lagorio

Architecture professor emeritus Henry J. Lagorio has been named an honorary member of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute.

A member of the institute since l973, Lagorio has served as the organization's secretary treasurer and been a member of many committees. He has also been involved in the earthquake-related professions, including as a member of the editorial board of Earthquake Spectra. He was a founding member of the California Seismic Safety Commission. As program director for two years at the National Science Foundation, he established a $2.5 million five-year research program focusing on seismic rehabilitation and repair of existing buildings.


Stanley Saitowitz

Architecture Professor Stanley Saitowitz recently received two awards for his design of the New England Holocaust Memorial, a series of six glass towers located on the Freedom Trail across from Boston City Hall.

Dedicated in 1995, the memorial received the 1997 Harleston Parker Award from the Boston Society of Architects and the City of Boston. The award honors the most beautiful building or structure constructed in the greater Boston area within the past decade.

In selecting the Holocaust memorial from among 37 nominated projects, the committee of judges says it was impressed by "the project's power to move people emotionally and unite residents and tourists through their common humanity. We credited this power not to the text alone, but to the great creativity and vision of the designer."

The six 56-foot-tall glass towers are etched with six million numbers that flicker with light. Each tower rises above a burning chamber named for one of the Nazi death camps.

Calling the memorial "architecture with a soul," the committee said it "transcends problem solving and challenges its visitors to consider what they value. This is perhaps as great a contribution as a work of architecture can make."

Saitowitz' second honor was the 1998 Henry Bacon Medal for Memorial Architecture from the American Institute of Architects. This medal is given for memorials designed to portray, promote or symbolize an idea of spiritual concern.

Past recipients of the Bacon Medal include the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Mo., Le Memorial des Martyrs de la Deportation in Paris, the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial in Washington, D.C. and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, also in Washington, D.C.

 


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