Editorial Note - Vol. 11, Nos. 2 & 3, 2017-Article

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This special issue presents outstanding papers from the Deep Foundations Institute’s 2017 Young Professor and Student Paper competitions, which recognize emerging researchers and strengthen links between geotechnical practice and academic study.<br /><br />The student competition’s first-place award went to University of South Florida PhD candidates Sarah Mobley and Kelly Costello for research on how bentonite, polymer, and natural slurries affect drilled-shaft cover quality. Their laboratory study examined 24 specimens and identified relationships between slurry type and laitance-channel formation, with implications for shaft durability.<br /><br />Student runner-up Martijn van Wijngaarden studied pore-pressure changes beneath cyclically loaded offshore gravity foundations. His findings indicate that reliable predictions require many generated loading time series because irregular cyclic loads produce substantial variation in peak pore pressures. Runner-up Jennifer Ostrowsky developed a laboratory method for evaluating the ductility, stiffness, and permeability of cutoff-wall backfill materials.<br /><br />The 2017 Young Professor Paper Award went to Portland State University’s Arash Khosravifar and former doctoral student Jonathan Nasr. They used nonlinear dynamic analyses to assess bridge pile foundations exposed to liquefaction-induced lateral spreading and proposed a modified equivalent-static design procedure. Young Professor runner-up Hoyoung Seo and doctoral student Mintae Kim investigated soil plugging during pile driving, finding that pipe piles can repeatedly shift between plugged and unplugged states.<br /><br />The issue also recognizes several other high-quality student submissions. It features Jignasha Panchal’s centrifuge study of lime stabilization near deep excavations, which found that a stabilized clay layer increased excavation stability threefold compared with an unimproved reference case.<br /><br />The editors thank the competition reviewers and encourage continued support for the development of the next generation of foundation engineers.

Keywords

deep foundations

geotechnical engineering

young professor award

student paper competition

drilled shaft slurry

bentonite slurry

cyclic loading

pore pressure

pile foundations

liquefaction