Richard Cavagnaro Award 2021

This event is a competition involving a series of research presentations by young geotechnical professionals. By its nature, the event serves to inform the practicing engineering community of the latest research developments currently underway.

Richard Cavagnaro Award

The winner of the research competition will receive the Richard Cavagnaro Award, consisting of a $400 prize, a certificate, and a mention in the Australian Geomechanics Journal and AGS website. Note that the judges reserve the right to split the prize money, e.g. in the event of a draw. In the event of there being presentations of merit in addition to the winning presentation further cash prizes may be awarded at the discretion of the judges.

The research presentation competition is open to undergraduate and postgraduate students of geotechnical engineering and geotechnical engineers under the age of 30 years old.

Presentations are to be less than 15 minutes in duration and will be judged by a panel consisting of a minimum of 3 senior geotechnical engineers according to the criteria given below:

Presenters will have access to a computer and a projector.

To enter the competition, please send a research abstract to Xiyang Chen [email protected] by 5pm on 30/09/2021. The event is aiming to be held on 18/10/2021.

Biography of Richard Louis Cavagnaro (1941 – 2006), Geotechnical Engineer

Richard Louis Cavagnaro was born in 1941 in California in the USA and received his engineering education at the University of California at Berkeley. After briefly working as an engineer in the USA he travelled to Australia for a working holiday and got a job as a geotechnical engineer with Coffey and Hollingsworth in Sydney. There he married an Australian woman and decided to stay. Richard and his family moved to Adelaide in 1977 where he worked for Coffey’s Adelaide office, then with R M Herriot and Associates and Golder Associates. For much of the period from 1996 to 2006 Richard worked as an in-house contract engineer for the Department of Transport.

During his career he was involved in many aspects of geotechnical engineering including, earthworks design, remediation of unstable slopes, design of roads and footings for residential subdivisions and industrial developments and geotechnical investigation for several major bridges.

Richard strove for excellence in his work. To advance geotechnical knowledge and practice he conducted research into the performance of footings on reactive clays and insitu testing of soil. He was keen to pass his knowledge of geotechnical engineering on to younger engineers and for many years served on the committee of the SA/NT Chapter of the AGS. This is why this award is named the Richard Cavagnaro award.

Engineers Australia members participating in AGS technical sessions can record attendance on their personal CPD logs. Members should refer to Engineers Australia CPD policy for details on CPD types, requirements and auditing guidelines.