BIOGRAPHICAL
SKETCH
MEHMET T. TÜMAY, Ph.D., P.E., D.GE, Fellow ASCE
Georgia Gulf Distinguished Professor Emeritus;
Consulting Engineer
Dr. Mehmet T. Tümay, Fellow and a Life Member of the
American Society of Civil Engineers, and a Diplomate of the Academy of
Geo-Professionals, is the Georgia Gulf Distinguished
Professor Emeritus in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at
Louisiana State University. He has been on active LSU Faculty 1976-2005, and has
served the LSU College of Engineering as the Associate Dean for Research and
Graduate Studies, and as Director of the Donald W. Clayton Interdisciplinary
Graduate Program in Engineering Science, 1997 –2004. Dr. Tümay received his
B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from Robert College School of Engineering, University of
Virginia, and Istanbul Technical University, respectively. He also holds a
postdoctoral Docent degree from Istanbul Technical University. His academic,
research and consulting affiliations include universities, research
institutions, and industry in the U.S., The Netherlands, France, Turkey, Korea,
Norway, Taiwan, Poland, Brazil and People’s Republic of China.
Dr.
Tümay is currently an Adjunct Professor at Bogazici
University in Istanbul, Turkey. He is also a Senior Consultant for Fugro
Onshore Geotechnics, Fugro Consultants, Inc. He is a licensed Civil Engineer in
the States of Louisiana, Georgia and South Carolina.
Dr. Tümay’s
major field of interest is geotechnical engineering. He has done extensive
research for the past 45+ years in the areas of in-situ evaluation of
engineering properties of soils, soil physico-chemical behavior, and novel
methods of soil improvement. He has earned national and international
recognition from the consulting and academic communities for his pioneering
research accomplishments, mainly in electronic cone penetration and
computer-aided data collection/reduction systems for evaluation of the
engineering behavior of geomedia. He was
recently recognized “for outstanding contributions to
the profession, research and education in geotechnical engineering,” at
the GeoShanghai 2006 International Conference in Shanghai, China, June 2006. He
was inducted to the LSU Department Civil and Environmental Engineering Hall of
Distinction “to recognize individuals who have made stalwart contributions to
the profession,” on April 17, 2009. He was selected
by the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, ATAA, as “StarTURK” (to recognize and commend
successful Turkish Americans in the Sciences, Medicine, Arts, Business, Literature, Politics, Sports and general
vocations) on December 15, 2011.
Dr.
Tümay has served as Project Director / Principal Investigator of numerous
grants from prestigious national and international agencies, including the U.S.
National Science Foundation, the office of Naval Research, the Federal Highway
Administration, the National Cooperative Highway Research Program, the French
Ministry of Research, and the United Nations Development Program. Fugro
Consultants International, b.v., a major international consulting company from
the Netherlands, established the Fugro Post-Doctoral Fellowship at LSU
dedicated to the advancement of in-situ testing under Dr. Tümay’s supervision.
During
1990-1994 Dr. Tümay served as the Director of the Geomechanical, Geotechnical
& Geo-Environmental Systems (G3S) program at the National Science
Foundation, Washington, D.C., on an Intergovernmental Professional Act (IPA)
assignment. During his tenure the budgetary and technical scope of the G3S
program he directed was enhanced by including inter- and multi-disciplinary
research areas of infrastructure development, environmental geotechnology,
underground space development, and high performance geomedia materials.
Multi-national technology transfer and international research efforts were
encouraged through Workshops held in France, Canada, Turkey, P.R. of China,
Brazil, Scandinavia, and Taiwan to enhance bi-lateral scholarly collaboration.
In
1994, Dr. Tümay was appointed as the Director of Research at Louisiana
Transportation Research Center to initiate/broaden technology development and
implementation concepts, and expand the nationally competitive cross-disciplinary
funding base from external sources. During Dr. Tümay’s 1994-1999 tenure as
Director of Research, LTRC has been awarded research grants and contracts from
National Science Foundation, National Cooperative Highway Research Program,
Federal Highway Administration, Priority Technologies Program, U.S.C.E.
Waterways Experiment Station, and private industry. As Associate Dean for
Research and Graduate Studies, and a member of the LTRC Policy Committee, Dr. Tümay
continued to participate in the planning and
development of LTRC’s research expansion project 1997-2004.
Dr.
Tümay has done extensive design and consulting for state, private, national and
international agencies. In addition, he has successfully conducted special
workshops, programs, and seminars at universities, agencies and industrial
institutions worldwide. He has served as Maitre de Conference en Mechanique des
Sols, Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees, Paris, France, and as an Advisory
Professor to Tongji University, Shanghai, P.R. China, and Federal University of
Vicosa, Minas Gerais, Brazil. He participates actively in various professional
organizations, including ASCE, NRC, TRB, NCHRP, USUCGER, ASTM, ISSMGE, ABET,
and ASEE.
He
is a member of many national and international technical committees, and was
Chairman of NRC/TRB Section AFP00 “Geology and Properties of Earth Materials,”
1996-2002, overseeing 6 technical committees, AFP20 – AFP60, and was on
the NRC/TRB Group AF000 Council on “Design and Construction of Transportation
Facilities, and served as Chairman of the “Scope, Organization and Function
Committee, 1999-2002. He was Chairman of TRB Committee AFP30 - Soil and Rock
Properties 1989-1995. In 2003, Dr. Tümay was elevated to Member Emeritus status
of Committee AFP30.
In
1994 he was elected to the Board of Directors of U.S. Universities’ Council on
Geotechnical Engineering Research, USUCGER, and served as treasurer and than as
the president 1997 - 1999. Dr. Tümay served as Associate Editor of the ASCE
Journal of Infrastructure Systems 1994-2004, and on the Editorial Board of the
Journal of the Geotechnical and GeoEnvironmental
Engineering of the ASCE 1984-1994. He is a member of the Advisory Council of
the Electronic Journal of Geotechnical Engineering and is on the Editorial Board
of the International Journal of Geotechnical Engineering and the International
Scholarly Research Network. He has been active in ASCE Committees on
Publications, Placement and Improvement of Soils, and Safety and Reliability.
Dr.
Tümay served as a charter member of the Academic Research Council of the
Civil Engineering Research Foundation 1995-2002, and represented LTRC on the
National Council for Civil Engineering Research. He was a member of The Engineer and Surveyor Selection Board, City of Baton
Rouge Parish, 2004 –2006. He was selected as Louisiana State
University’s recipient of the Louisiana Engineering Foundation Faculty
Professionalism Award for 2001. His scholarly activities include more than 150
published scientific articles, and contributions to numerous conferences and
symposia. He has presented invited papers worldwide on technical topics and
general research, education and policy issues in geotechnical engineering, and
general civil infrastructure.