CEE at Illinois Professor Timothy D. Stark was named the second Ralph B. Peck Professor of Civil Engineering by The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign on Wednesday, January 21, 2026 at the M.T. Geoffrey Yeh Student Center.
The investiture ceremony included remarks from CEE Department Head Ana Barros, Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Dean of the Graduate College Wojtk Chodzko-Zajko, Chairman, President, & CEO Emeritus, Geosyntec Consultants Rudoph Bonarparte, and Dean of The Grainger College of Engineering Rashid Bashir.
"An investiture as a named professor is one of the highest honors a faculty member can receive, and today’s ceremony reflects the significance and dignity of that distinction," Dean Bashir explained.
"Named faculty positions communicate the global eminence of our faculty to the broader academic and professional community. They allow us to celebrate excellence across all dimensions of faculty achievement; teaching, research, and service—by recognizing scholars whose work expands knowledge, advances practice and serves society."
Stark teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in geotechnical engineering, earth dams, embankments, and slopes, foundation engineering, advanced soil mechanics and soil behavior, geosynthetics, and geoenvironmental engineering. His research includes static and seismic stability of natural and man-made slopes, embankments, and earth structures, soil shear strengths for slope stability analyses, design and durability of geosynthetics, 3D stability analyses, and shear strength of liquefied and fine-grained soils for seismic stability, runout, and flow failure analyses. These analyses are used for fundamental understanding and predicting slope performance as well as forensic analysis of slope failures. This work is summarized in a textbook titled: “Static Slope Stability in Practice: Drained Shear Strengths” published by ASCE Press in 2025. In 2024, he was one of 11 named a Distinguished Member of ASCE and he has received 11 other major awards from ASCE including the 2019 George H. Norman Medal, the highest award given by ASCE for a paper published in the prior 12 months in any ASCE journal.
“I am honored to have been selected to be the second Ralph B. Peck Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Illinois.” Stark said. “I credit this achievement to my hardworking students who have helped and educated me throughout my career. I accept this great honor on their behalf. The professorship funds will be used to support future graduate student research on important civil infrastructure topics.”
The Ralph Peck Professorship, made possible by alumni donations, was named in honor of Ralph B. Peck. Peck joined the University of Illinois faculty in 1942 and worked in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering until his retirement in 1974. In 1948, he and Karl Terzaghi co-authored the most influential geotechnical engineering textbook of the time: Soil Mechanics in Engineering Practice. In 1953, he partnered with Walt Hanson and Tom Thornburn to co-author Foundation Engineering, another widely used textbook. Upon retirement, he moved to Albuquerque, where he continued to be active in a consulting practice that spanned 44 states and 28 countries. His projects included the rapid transit systems in Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington; the Alaskan Pipeline System; the James Bay Project in Quebec; the Dead Sea Dikes; and the Rion-Antirion Bridge in Greece. His many honors include the National Medal of Science, Norman Medal, Wellington Prize, Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Education from the American Society of Engineers, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
In addition to his professional practice, Peck was a prolific scholar and a dedicated mentor, authoring influential publications and advising dozens of doctoral students. Even after his retirement, he remained closely connected to Grainger Engineering and university. The Department of Civil Engineering awards the Ralph B. Peck Professorship to recognize faculty who exemplify Dr. Peck’s legacy of excellence.
CEE at Illinois Professor Gholamreza Mesri was the first recipient of the professorship. Mesri taught advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in geotechnical engineering at the University of Illinois for more than 50 years, and is regarded as a leading international expert on the behavior of soft clays and has written more than 150 papers published in leading geotechnical engineering journals and in published conference proceedings. He has also received many awards for his research, including the George H. Norman Medal twice, the Thomas A. Middlebrooks Award, and the OPAL and Karl Terzaghi Awards, both from ASCE. He is also the co-author with Terzaghi and Peck of the 3rd Edition of Soil Mechanics in Engineering Practice.