Jamie Padgett, the Stanley C. Moore Professor in Engineering and chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice, has been named Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE).
Padgett joins a select group that represents fewer than 3% of ASCE members, adding to her previous recognition by ASCE with the 2024 Charles Martin Duke Lifeline Earthquake Engineering Award and as a Fellow of ASCE’s Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) in 2020. The prestigious Fellow status requires 10 years of responsible charge work while maintaining ASCE membership, along with documented contributions to civil engineering and society.
Padgett joined Rice in 2007 and has served as chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering since 2022. Her research focuses on quantifying and improving the resilience of structural portfolios and infrastructure systems when exposed to natural hazards. For example, Padgett’s research has developed methods to assess and enhance the performance of a range of systems exposed to hurricanes, earthquakes and floods, including bridges, tanks, energy and industrial facilities, and transportation systems.
“ASCE is a wonderful organization and I have gained a lot from participating in our professional society throughout my career,” said Padgett. “The organization provides valuable opportunities for collaboration and growth. Being named to the Fellow grade in ASCE is an honor shared with my whole research team, current and past, reflecting their many accomplishments over the years.”
"We're incredibly proud of Jamie and thrilled to see her recognized as an ASCE Fellow. Her passion for engineering, her leadership, and the care she brings to mentoring students and faculty alike make a real difference every day. This honor is so well deserved, and we're lucky to have her as a colleague and leader at Rice," said Luay Nakhleh, the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Engineering and Computing and professor of computer science and biosciences.
Padgett has published more than 300 articles in journals or archived conference proceedings in the field of structural response, multi-hazards, reliability and life-cycle assessment. She was the founding chair of the ASCE/SEI technical committee on Multiple Hazard Mitigation and served on the leadership of the ASCE Technical Council on Life-Cycle Performance, Safety, Reliability and Risk of Structural and Infrastructure Systems.
Beyond Rice, Padgett serves in leadership roles within several large national research efforts including the National Institute of Standards and Technology-funded Center of Excellence for Risk-based Resilience Planning and the National Science Foundation-funded Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) Cyberinfrastructure “DesignSafe-CI”.