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Honors and Awards

  • Recipient of the 2018 ASCE Thomas A. Middlebrooks best paper award, which is the top ASCE geotechnical paper prize for the year. The award was given for the journal paper titled “Two Case Histories Demonstrating the Effect of Past Earthquakes on Liquefaction Resistance of Silty Sand”.
  • Recipient of the 2017 ASCE Thomas A. Middlebrooks paper excellence award, which is the top ASCE geotechnical paper prize for the year. The award was given for the journal paper titled “Cyclic Shear Strain Needed for Liquefaction Triggering and Assessment of Overburden Pressure Factor Kσ.”
  • Received the Editor’s Choice recognition in the June 2017 issue of the ASCE Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering. paper titled “Two Case Histories Demonstrating the Effect of Past Earthquakes on Liquefaction Resistance of Silty Sand”
  • Recipient of the 2016 American Society of Engineer Education (ASEE) Saint Lawrence Section (North East USA & Eastern Canada) “ASEE Outstanding Teaching Award” for the successful development and implementation of mixed reality mobile game “geo-explorer” in undergraduate education.
  • RPI school of Engineering 2016 “Education Innovation Award” in recognition of the outstanding efforts and great success in the development and implementation of innovative teaching techniques in the field of Engineering.
  • Recipient of 2015 Wharton-QS Stars Reimagine Education Bronze Award for the successful development and implementation of web-based education module for integrating state-of-the-art experimental facilities in undergraduate education at remote campuses. The award is administrated by UPENN and receives over 500 nominations annually for eight award categories. This award is for the Engineering & IT Education category.
  • Recipient of 2013 Chi Epsilon, The National Civil Engineering Honor Society, “Excellence in Teaching” award for the Northeast Region.
  • Named one of the top School of Engineering faculty with more than $1M in research expenditures/awards for FY12, FY13 & FY14.
  • Recipient of RPI Board of Trustees’ 2012 “Outstanding Teacher Award”. The award recognizes faculty outstanding accomplishments in classroom instruction and teaching innovation. The selection is made based on evidence of sustained outstanding teaching as reflected by student evaluations, alumni and peer faculty.
  • Appointed Member of the international committee for "Safety of Levees, Dams, Shore Protection and Land Reclamation" (2010-2012).
  • Named the Judith and Thomas Iovino Chair Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering.
  • Recipient of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize for 2009. The award is in recognition of the significant contributions to the study of soil and soil-structure systems subjected to extreme events using centrifuge modeling and advanced instrumentation as well as his innovative and highly creative research.
  • Winner of the international competition for predicting levees response that included over forty competitors. The competition was organized by Deltares, Netherlands as part of the Project De IJkdijk (The Calibration Dike) funded by EU to enhance levees design and monitoring in Europe.
  • Elected President of the Network of Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) Consortium (2009-2012).
  • Recipient of RPI’s School of Engineering Excellence in Teaching Award for 2008. The award recognizes faculty for outstanding teaching performance and contributions.
  • Recipient of RPI’s School of Engineering Excellence in Collaborative Research Award for 2007 & 2008.
  • Recipient of RPI’s School of Engineering Recognition for Excellence in supporting undergraduate research. The award recognizes faculty effort for encouraging undergraduate student participation in advanced research.
  • Recipient of “Commander’s Award for Public Service with accompanying medal.” This medal is the highest awards given by the US Army to Civilians who provided outstanding services to the US Army. This award is in appreciation for his support of the New Orleans Recovery through efforts with the Evaluation Task Force of the Hurricane Katrina Interagency Performance (IPET).
  • Recipient of “Certificate of Recognition” on behalf of the Project Director, Technical Director, and Team Leads. This award is in recognition of the leadership and dedication provided to the IPET effort.
  • Recipient of 2007 Shamsher Prakash International Research Award for young engineers, scientists and researchers. The award is given to specialists who have significant independent contributions and showed promise of excellence in Geotechnical Engineering and/or Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering.
  • Invited Article, Geotechnical News Magazine – Geotechnical Instrumentation News (T. Abdoun and V. Bennett, (2008) “A New Wireless MEMS-Based System for Real-Time Deformation Monitoring, Geotechnical News Magazine, Vol 26, No 1.).
  • Recipient of NEES Award for “Best IT Innovation” for 2007, for the development of interactive 3D viewer for advanced educational and research applications.
  • Recipient of RPI’s Institute 22nd Early Career Award for Outstanding Contribution in Teaching & Research for 2007.
  • Recipient of RPI’s Trustee Board Recognition of Faculty Achievement for four years in a row 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008.
  • Led RPI’s physical modeling research activities for New Orleans Levees. RPI’s research findings were shown on national networks (CNN, NBC, Discovery, ASCE News, Times, etc.) and featured in the National Academy of Engineering’s Spring 2007 issue of The Bridge, in John Christian’s article, “Lessons from Hurricane Katrina”.
  • Recipient of CSCE’s (Canadian Society for Civil Engineering) Casimir Gzowski Medal for best journal paper for 2004 entitled "Numerical model verification and calibration of George Massey Tunnel using centrifuge models”, which was published in Volume 41, No. 5 issue of the Canadian Geotechnical Journal.
  • Recipient of RPI’s School of Engineering Excellence in Research Award for 2004.
  • Patent for “Shape-Acceleration measurement Device and Method for Real-Time Field Monitoring” Danisch, L. A., Lowery-Simpson, M. S. and Abdoun, T., June, 2004.
  • Two page article in the Technology Advances section of ASCE News Magazine covering the newly developed Shape-Acceleration sensor for real time field monitoring of geotechnical system. (ASCE News Magazine, Technology Advances Section, September, 2004, pp. 30-31).