Dr. Kimberly Kurtis has been named to the position of associate chair for graduate programs for the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, effective June 30, 2013. Kurtis takes over the position from Dr. Donald Webster, who will now serve as CEE’s associate chair for finance and administration.
Kurtis will join another newly named associate chair, Dr. Susan Burns, who will serve as the advisor to undergraduate programs.
A 2013 recipient of ASCE’s Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize, Kurtis was recognized earlier this spring by Georgia Tech with the 2013 Senior Faculty Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award. Last year, she was named as a NSF ADVANCE professor for the Georgia Tech College of Engineering. She has twice chaired the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering’s Statutory Advisory Committee (SAC) and was elected to the Institute’s Student Academic and Financial Affairs Committee for two terms (1999-2005) and the Academic Senate (2009-2012).
“Kim’s resume only tells half the story,” said CEE Chair Dr. Reginald DesRoches. “Throughout her tenure at Georgia Tech, she has been a driving force in student mentorship and achievement. Those qualities will be crucial to her in this new role.”
Kurtis earned her bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Tulane University under a Deans Honor Scholarship, and her PhD in civil engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, where she was a Henry Hilp Fellow and a National Science Foundation (NSF) Fellow. Her innovative research on the multi-scale structure and performance of cement-based materials has resulted in more than 100 technical publications and two US patents.
In addition to the above-mentioned honors, Kurtis has chaired the American Concrete Institute (ACI) Committee 236: Materials Science of Concrete (2006-2012), ACI Committee E802: Teaching Methods and Educational Materials (2001-2005), and American Ceramic Society’s (ACerS) Cements Division (2008-2009). In addition, she has been tapped to serve on several ACI Standing Board Committees, including Educational Activities Committee (2008-present), Committee on Nominations, and various awards committees. At ACerS, she currently serves as the Cements Division representative on the Panel of Fellows. She has served as Associate Editor of ASCE Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering and is Editorial Board member of Cement and Concrete Composites.
Kurtis is the recipient of multiple awards including ACI’s Walter P. Moore, Jr. Faculty Achievement Award (2005), the ACI-James Instruments Award for Research on NDE of Concrete (2008), ACI’s Del Bloem Award for Service (2013), Award for Outstanding Article in ASTM’s Journal of Testing and Evaluation (2010), and Outstanding Senior Undergraduate Research Mentor Award at Georgia Institute of Technology (2013). She is Fellow of both the American Concrete Institute and the American Ceramics Society.