PI spotlight: Youssef Hashash

Youssef Hashash is the William J. and Elaine F. Hall Endowed Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. He served as principal investigator of Illinois Center for Transportation and Illinois Department of Transportation's joint project R27-SP16 “Evaluation of Horizontal Directional Drilling.”  He is currently the PI on follow-up project R27-198: “Development of Guidelines for Implementation of Horizontal Directional Drilling.”

“The objective of this project was to study the effects of horizontal directional drilling (HDD) for utilities under pavement and within the right of way of the State of Illinois in order to aide in the writing of the policy and procedures for administering permit requests for HDD,” said Hashash.

Hashash joined the CEE faculty in 1998 after working for five and a half years in industry in Texas and California. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in geotechnical engineering, numerical modeling in geomechanics, geotechnical earthquake engineering, tunneling in soil and rock, and excavation and support systems.

In 2014, Hashash was the recipient of the Ralph B. Peck Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers for his outstanding contributions to the geotechnical engineering profession. Specifically, he was recognized for his innovative research in evaluating the load and deformation response of deep excavations, using novel modeling approaches and innovative monitoring technologies as well as the immediate advancement of the excavation design practice. He has also appeared on the “List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by their Students” numerous times.

His research interests include deep excavations in urban areas, earthquake engineering, continuum and discrete element modeling, and soil-structure interaction. He also contributes to the use of visualization and virtual reality techniques in geotechnical engineering applications. Hashash has published many journal articles, co-authored and edited books, and co-invented several patents.

In addition to his many accomplishments, he has provided consulting services to both public and private sector organizations. He has also served in leadership roles in many professional societies and publications such as the Geo-Institute Board of Governors, where he is currently the president, and the Journal of Earthquake Engineering and GEER (Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance). Hashash co-lead or was a member of post disaster reconnaissance teams after earthquakes in Taiwan, China, Kashmir, Nepal, Chile and after Hurricane Sandy.

He earned his Ph.D., M.S., and B.S. degrees, all in civil engineering, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).