Michael Constantinou, Ph.D., F.ASCE, the Samuel P. Capen Professor and SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, has been named a Fellow by the ASCE Board of Direction.
Constantinou’s research interests concentrate on seismic protective systems, on which he has authored or co-authored over 300 papers, books and book chapters and reports. He is very well known for contributions in the development, behavioral understanding and modeling of sliding seismic isolation systems; in the understanding of the lifetime behavior of elastomeric and sliding isolators; in the development of the concept of property modification factors for performing bounding analysis of structures with seismic protective systems; and in the development and verification of theories for the hysteretic heating of lead-rubber and sliding isolators. He is equally known for contributions to the development of principles of scaling and similarity for the testing of seismic isolators; to the analysis and design of structures with seismic isolation and damping systems; to the development of semiactive damping systems; to the development of practical large-scale negative stiffness systems; and to the development of computer software for the analysis of structures with seismic protective systems.
He is widely recognized for his continuous participation in the development of codes and specifications on seismic protective systems. Constantinou has made significant contributions to the writing of codes, standards and guidelines related to the implementation of seismic protective systems for FEMA, NEHRP, AASHTO and ASCE. He has been a major contributor in the development of Chapters 17 and 18 of the ASCE/SEI 7 Standard. The U.S. National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, Federal Highway Administration, Department of Commerce, California Department of Transportation and Bonneville Power Administration have funded his research. He has consulted to government agencies, regulators, consultancies, contractors, and utilities in the United States and 10 other countries, and has been involved as consultant, inspector or peer reviewer for over 100 structures with seismic protective systems worldwide.
Constantinou has four U.S. patents issued. He received a 1988 Presidential Investigator Award and a 1991 Best Paper Award from the American Concrete Institute, and was co-recipient of the 2005 ASCE Civil Engineering Research Foundation Pankow Award for Innovation in the application of “coupled truss walls with damped linked elements in the Torre Mayor building” in Mexico City. He has also co-received three professional practice awards: the 1994 United States General Services Administration Design Award for the structural strengthening of the U.S. Court of Appeals Building in San Francisco, and the 2002 Diamond Award and 2002 Grand Award of the American Council of Engineering Companies, both for the retrofit design of the Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul, Turkey. In 2015 he was co-recipient of ASCE’s Moisseiff Award and was the ASCE Nathan M. Newmark Medal recipient.
