Professor B.F. Spencer Jr. is the Nathan M. and Anne M. Newmark Endowed Chair in Civil Engineering at the University of Illinois.  He holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering (University of Missouri – Rolla 1981), and M.S. and Ph.D. in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 1983, 1985). He joined the faculty of the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois in 2002. Dr. Spencer served as a professor at the University of Notre Dame from 1985-2002, where he held the Leo E. and Patti Ruth Linbeck Professor of Engineering.

Dr. Spencer has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in structural mechanics, structural dynamics, and structural reliability. He is the author of two books. The first is a monograph entitled, On the Reliability of Nonlinear Hysteretic Structures Subjected to Broadband Random Excitation (Springer-Verlag 1986). The second book, coauthored with Prof. K. Sobczyk, is entitled, Random Fatigue: From Data to Theory (Academic Press 1992).

Dr. Spencer is a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), was the founding chair of the Committee on Structural Control and is the past chair of the Committee on Fatigue and Fracture Reliability, both in the ASCE Structures Division. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Structural Control and has served as associate editor for the ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering. He is also a Foreign Member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the North American Editor in Chief of Smart Structures and Systems, and the president of the Asia-Pacific Network of Centers for Research in Smart Structures Technology.
 

Glaucio H. Paulino holds a B.S. (Universidade de Brasilia 1985), M.S. (PUC-Rio, Brazil, 1988), and Ph.D. (Cornell University 1995), all in civil engineering, in addition to an M.S. degree in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from Cornell University (1993). Prior to joining the University of Illinois in 1999, he served as a faculty member at the University of California at Davis. Currently he is the Burton and Erma Lewis Faculty Scholar of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He is also affiliated with the Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (TAM), the Computational Science and Engineering Program, and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).

Dr. Paulino has taught graduate and undergraduate classes in mechanics of materials (laboratory and theory), fracture mechanics, plates and shells, continuum mechanics, tensor analysis, methods of structural analysis, finite element method, and boundary element method. His teaching honors include his appointment as a Collins Scholar (2001) and Collins Fellow (2002) by the College of Engineering, Academy for Excellence in Engineering Education.

Dr. Paulino is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE), the American Academy of Mechanics (AAM), the International Association for Boundary Element Methods (IABEM), and the International Society for Boundary Element Methods (ISBE). He is a member of Executive Committee of the IABEM, the Computational Mechanics committee of the ASCE Engineering Mechanics Division, the Committee on Computational and Applied Mechanics (CONCAM) of ASME, and the International Advisory Committee on Functionally Graded Materials (IACFGM). Moreover, he is on the editorial board of some international journals.

Dr. Paulino has given many invited lectures at international conferences, universities, research laboratories, and engineering companies. He was awarded the 2003 Xerox Award for Faculty Research. He is presently a faculty fellow at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.

James M. LaFave holds a B.S. (1986) and M.S. (1987) in civil engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and a Ph.D. (1997) in civil (structural) engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has been on the faculty of the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Illinois since 1999. Dr. LaFave was previously a faculty member at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst for two years before coming to Illinois. During the 2007-08 academic year, Prof. LaFave is on sabbatical leave as a visiting associate professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. He is a licensed Professional Engineer with over four years of consulting engineering experience at Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc. in Princeton, NJ and Sargent & Lundy Engineers in Chicago, IL.

Prof. LaFave has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in the area of structural design, including courses on the behavior, design, and assessment of reinforced concrete, structural steel, and prestressed concrete structures. He also works with student organizations in his capacity as Faculty Advisor to the Chi Epsilon Civil Engineering Honor Society and the ASCE Steel Bridge Team.

Prof. LaFave is a member of the American Concrete Institute (ACI) and the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI). He is Chair of Joint ACI-ASCE Committee 352 (Joints and Connections in Monolithic Concrete Structures) and a Member of ACI Committee 374 (Performance-Based Seismic Design of Concrete Buildings) and ACI Committee 439 (Steel Reinforcement).

In 2002 and again in 2005, Prof. LaFave received the University of Illinois ASCE Student Chapter Outstanding Instructor Award, and he was named a 2005 UIUC College of Engineering Xerox Award recipient for Faculty Research. In 2006, Prof. LaFave was presented with the ASTM Alan H. Yorkdale Memorial Award by the American Society for Testing & Materials, and in 2007 he received an Outstanding TMS Journal Paper Award by The Masonry Society.

Jerome F. Hajjar holds a B.S. (Yale University 1982) in engineering mechanics, and an M.S. (Cornell University 1985) and Ph.D. (Cornell University 1988) in structural engineering. He has been on the faculty of the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois since 2005. Prior to joining the University of Illinois, he was a professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Minnesota from 1992 to 2005. Prior to joining the University of Minnesota, Dr. Hajjar was a structural engineer and associate at Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill in their New York and Chicago offices from 1988 to 1992. He also served as the UPS Foundation Visiting Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University in 2000-2001.

Dr. Hajjar has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in structural analysis, structural dynamics, and design of steel and composite steel/concrete structures. He has received several teaching awards, including the Bonestroo, Rosene, Anderlik Undergraduate Faculty Award in 1996 and 1997, the 1998 Taylor Career Development Award, and the 2001 Charles E. Bowers Faculty Award at the University of Minnesota.

From 2005-2007, Dr. Hajjar served as the Deputy Director of the Mid-America Earthquake (MAE) Center, a National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Center.  He is on the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) Committee on Specifications and its Task Committees on Composite Construction; Stability; and Loads, Analysis, and Systems, for which he is vice-chair; he led the editing of the AISC Commentary for the 2005 AISC Specification; he was on the Building Seismic Safety Council (BSSC) Provisions Update Committee and the BSSC Task Subcommittee 11 on Composite Construction; he was the chair of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Structural Engineering Institute Technical Administrative Committee on Metals; he was the chair of the ASCE Technical Committee on Load and Resistance Factor Design; and he was the 2005 President of the ASCE Minnesota Section.  Dr. Hajjar was awarded the 2000 ASCE Norman Medal, the 2003 ASCE Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize, the 2004 AISC Special Achievement Award, and the 2005 AISC T. R. Higgins Lectureship Award and the 2009 ASCE Shortridge Hardesty Award for his research on steel and composite construction.  Dr. Hajjar is also a registered professional engineer in Illinois and Minnesota.

Professor Amr Elnashai, Fellow of the UK Royal Academy of Engineering is the William and Elaine Hall Endowed Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois.  He is also Director and Chair of the College of Engineering Council on Global Engineering Initiatives.

A graduate of Cairo University, Dr. Elnashai obtained his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from Imperial College, University of London, UK. Before joining the University of Illinois in June 2001, he was Professor of Earthquake Engineering and Head of Section at Imperial College. He has been Visiting Professor at the University of Surrey since 1997. Other visiting appointments include the University of Tokyo, the University of Southern California (1990-1995) and the European School for Advanced Studies in Reduction of Seismic Risk, Italy, where he has served on the Board of Directors since its founding in 2000.

Dr. Elnashai is founder and co-editor of the Journal of Earthquake Engineering, editorial board member of several other journals, a member of the drafting panel of the European and Egyptian design codes, past chairman of the UK earthquake engineering association, UK delegate to and past senior Vice-President of the European Association of Earthquake Engineering. He is the winner of the Imperial College Unwin Prize for the best PhD thesis in Civil and Mechanical Engineering (1984), the Oscar Faber Medal for best paper in the Institution of Structural Engineering, and two best paper medals from the International Association of Tall Buildings, Los Angeles. He served as coordinator for major European research networks including 14 institutions from 9 countries.             

Dr. Elnashai is Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Institution of Structural Engineers in the UK. He is President of the Asian-Pacific Network (ANCER), a member of the FIB Seismic Design Commission Working Groups and two Applied Technology Council (ATC, USA) technical committees as well as the Illinois State Seismic Safety Task Force. He founded the Japan-UK Seismic Risk Forum in 1995 and served as its director until 2004. He was adviser to the UK Department of the Environment, chairman of a ministerial committee for the assessment of scientific research in Egypt, adviser to the Civil Defense Agency of Italy and review panel member for the Italian Ministry of Research and the New Zealand and Canadian Science Research Councils.

He has successfully supervised 35 Ph.D. and more than 100 Master of Science theses. Many of his students hold significant positions in industry, academia and government in over 12 countries. He has contributed to projects for a number of international companies and other agencies such as the World Bank, GSK, Shell, AstraZeneca, Minorco, British Nuclear Fuels, Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, Mott MacDonald, British Airport Authority, Alstom Power, the Greek, Turkish and Indonesian Governments, Federal Highway Administration, National Geographic Society, US AID, among others. He is currently leading a large project for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and State Emergency Management Agencies.