James R. Harris

CEEAA Distinguished Alumni Award, 2009

For outstanding leadership in practice and project management, for valuable contributions nationally to the profession of civil engineering, and for exceptional service to the Department.

Biography

Born and raised in eastern Colorado, James R. Harris received his undergraduate education in civil engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder.  After working in professional practice in Denver for five years, he and his wife, Karen, and the first of their three daughters moved to Urbana in the fall of 1973, when Harris entered graduate school in CEE at the University of Illinois. His adviser was Professor Richard N. Wright, who had just returned from a sabbatical at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS).

After completing course work and a successful proposal for a dissertation topic, Harris joined Wright at NBS in the fall of 1975, completing the work on the Illinois thesis in absentia. A significant portion of the work was performed in close collaboration with Professor Steven J. Fenves, an Illini who had left to head the civil engineering department at Carnegie-Mellon in Pittsburgh. Harris was fortunate to be able use the development of then-new provisions for seismic design (the ATC 3 project) as a case study, and in that endeavor be associated with professors Nathan Newmark and William J. Hall.

Harris returned to professional practice in Colorado in 1981, and he has headed J.R. Harris & Company since 1984. He has remained active in the development of standards of practice, serving on numerous committees of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Concrete Institute, the American Institute of Steel Construction, and the Building Seismic Safety Council.