Hessam Yazdani, Ph.D., candidate in geotechnical engineering at the University of Oklahoma is the winner of the DFI Educational Trust 2013 Student Paper Competition. His winning paper is titled, “Optimization of Piled-Raft Foundations Considering Soil-Pile Raft Interaction.”
Yazdani received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from the University of Kerman, Iran, and moved to the U.S. for his Ph.D. in 2011. At that time he was offered a research assistant position by his advisor, Dr. Kianoosh Hatami. His main research interests include simulations of random heterogeneous materials and the application of innovative materials as well as probabilistic, optimization, and data mining methods in geotechnical engineering. He is the author of more than 25 papers published in accredited journals and international conference proceedings.
The first runner-up for the Student Paper Competition is Fawad Niazi, graduate research assistant, Georgia Institute of Technology. His paper is titled, “A Review of the Design Formulations for Static Axial Response of Deep Foundations from CPT Data.”
Awards will be presented at the DFI 38th Annual Conference on Deep Foundations in Phoenix, AZ at the awards banquet on September 27 and Hessam Yazdani will present his topic to the conference attendees on September 28. The two papers will be published in a future volume of the DFI Journal.
About the DFI Educational Trust
The Deep Foundations Institute Educational Trust (www.trust.dfi.org) is an independent, 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization established in 2006 by the Deep Foundations Institute (DFI) as its charitable arm. The mission of the Trust is to support and encourage individuals in the fields of study related to the deep foundation industry by providing scholarships and opportunities to meet and work with deep foundation industry leaders.
