Thomas O'Rourke

Thomas Denis O'Rourke (* 1948 ) is an American civil engineer who specializes in geotechnical engineering and is a professor at Cornell University .

O'Rourke studied civil engineering from Cornell University with a bachelor's degree in 1970 and from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a master's degree in 1973 and a PhD in 1975.

He deals with the effects of natural disasters and other threats on extensive infrastructure structures (and developed geographical information systems for this purpose), earthquake-proof construction and with pipelines and tunnels. For example, he advised on major water tunnel projects and several subway projects in New York City and on water supply and local transport in San Francisco. He also designed pipelines for high pressures and analyzed their earthquake safety.

He received the Ralph B. Peck Award, the Stephen D. Bechtle Award in Pipeline Engineering and was a Rankine Lecturer ( Geohazards and large geographically distributed systems ) in 2009 . He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2000) and the National Academy of Engineering (1993). For 2016 he was selected as a Terzaghi Lecturer .

In 2003/04 he was director of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute. He investigated the consequences of earthquakes worldwide (for example the 2011 Christchurch earthquake , the Kobe earthquake in 1995 , the Spitak earthquake in 1988 (Armenia), the Gölcük earthquake in 1999 ) and was on the committee of the National Academy of Engineering, which dealt with the consequences of Hurricane Katrina in the New Orleans examined. He investigated the impact of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the infrastructure in New York for the Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems - his committee concluded that the infrastructure withstood the attacks remarkably well.

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