engineering

Izzat M. Idriss

Izzat M. Idriss is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Izzat M. Idriss rather than just read about it. In short: Izzat (Ed) M. Idriss (born 1935) is a Syrian-American geotechnical engineer.

Key takeaways

Izzat M. Idriss belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Izzat M. Idriss to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Izzat M. Idriss from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Izzat (Ed) M. Idriss (born 1935) is a Syrian-American geotechnical engineer. His research on the geotechnical aspects of earthquake engineering has led to the development of many of the currently used procedures for evaluating the behavior of soil sites and soil structures during earthquakes, such as methods for evaluating: the characteristics of earthquake ground motions; seismic response of sites; potential for soil liquefaction; performance of embankment dams during earthquakes; and soil-structure interaction in response to earthquake shaking.

Early life and education Idriss was born in Qarah, a small village in Syria. When he was two years old his family moved to Damascus until he was 16, at which time he moved to Beirut, Lebanon, to complete high school. In 1954 he moved to the United States to attend university. He earned a BS in civil engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1958; an MS in civil engineering from California Institute of Technology in 1959; and a PhD in civil engineering from University of California, Berkeley, in 1966 under the guidance of H. Bolton Seed.

Career In 1960 he joined Dames & Moore at their New York Office and worked there until 1962, when returned to California begin his PhD at UC Berkeley. After earning his PhD, he was a member of the teaching and research staff of the geotechnical engineering group at the University of California, Berkeley (1967-1975). He began his work with Woodward-Clyde Consultants in 1969 while still at UC Berkeley, and continued working in Woodward-Clyde's San Francisco, Santa Ana and Oakland offices until 1989. In 1989, he joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of California, Davis, where he was also Director of the Center for Geotechnical Modeling (CGM) (1989–1996). He retired from UC Davis in 2004.

Learning From Earthquakes Idriss has studied geotechnical data and damage impacts from damaging earthquakes to better understand the behavior of soils. He studied the L-Street slide in downtown Anchorage caused by the 1964 Alaska earthquake. He used boring logs and SPT low counts from the 1964 Niigata earthquake to illustrate the use of the Seed-Idriss simplified liquefaction procedure. A study of the 1967 Caracas earthquake evaluated the relationship between damage patterns and site conditions. After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake Idriss was appointed to the eleven-member Governor's Board of Inquiry, chaired by George W. Housner, which was formed to study the significant damage to bridges and freeway structures and to make recommendations about how to prevent such damage in the future. Using strong motion records from soft soil sites, he analyzed site response at Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay, Foster City, and the San Francisco Airport.

Professional Recognitions and Awards Thomas A. Middlebrooks Award (1971), along with co-authors H. Bolton Seed and Kenneth L. Lee Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize from ASCE (1975) Norman Medal from ASCE (1977) Election to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (1989) for "For major contributions to the understanding of soil behavior during earthquakes and for the application of these contributions in engineering practice." H. Bolton Seed Medal from the Geo-Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (1994) Distinguished Scholarly Public Service Award from the University of California, Davis (1999) Elected an honorary member of the Japanese Geotechnical Society (2005) Presented the 2nd Kenji Ishihara Lecture at the 4th International Conference on Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering, which was held in Thessaloniki, Greece in 2007 Elected a Distinguished Member of ASCE (2008) Recipient of the 2010 Ralph B. Peck Award from the Geo-Institute of ASCE Presented the Casagrande Memorial Lecture (2010) Elected an Honorary Member of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) in 2012 Presented the 2016 Nabor Carrillo Lecture. Selected by the Mexican Society for Geotechnical Engineering (Sociedad Mexicana de Ingeniería Geotécnica: SMIG) Recipient of the George W. Housner Medal from the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (2018) "in recognition of extraordinary and lasting contributions to public safety through his research, teaching and practice in earthquake geotechnical engineering that led to major advancements in the understanding of site response, liquefaction and seismic performance of embankment dams, and his advising of public policymakers on prudent earthquake safety practices and policies over the course of many decades." Presented the 2019 Karl Terzaghi Lecture. Selected by the Geo-Institute of ASCE. Elected an honorary member of the International Association for Earthquake Engineering (IAEE) in 2024.

References General Izzat M. Idriss, Connections: The EERI Oral History Series, an oral history conducted 2018-2019 by Ross W. Boulanger, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, Oakland, CA, 2024. ISBN 978-0-943198-39-2. Specific

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Izzat M. Idriss

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Izzat M. Idriss claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Izzat M. Idriss before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Izzat M. Idriss ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Izzat M. Idriss

In research: Izzat M. Idriss appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Izzat M. Idriss in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Izzat M. Idriss is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1935 births, 20th-century American engineers, American people of Syrian descent, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Izzat M. Idriss outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Izzat M. Idriss in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Izzat M. Idriss means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Izzat M. Idriss out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Izzat M. Idriss in simple terms?

Izzat (Ed) M. Idriss (born 1935) is a Syrian-American geotechnical engineer.

Why does Izzat M. Idriss matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Izzat M. Idriss?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Izzat M. Idriss.