Rodrigo Salgado
Charles Pankow Professor in Civil Engineering
Purdue University
Lyles School of Civil and Construction Engineering
550 Stadium Mall Drive
West Lafayette, IN 47907-2051
Office: HAMP G235
Phone: (765) 494-5030
Email:
salgado@purdue.edu
Websites
Specialty Area(s)
Affiliation(s)
Education
J.D. (cum laude), Indiana University, 2022
Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley, 1993
M.S., University of California at Berkeley, 1990
B.S., Universidade Federal do Rio Grande Do Sul, 1986
Research Interests
Rodrigo Salgado is the Charles Pankow Professor in Civil Engineering at Purdue University and co-Director of the Center for Offshore, Foundation and Energy Engineering (COFFEE). He holds a Ph.D. and an M.S. degree from the University of California, Berkeley, a J.D. (cum laude) from the Indiana University McKinney School of Law, and a civil engineering undergraduate degree from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil. Prof. Salgado has worked in theoretical, experimental and computational aspects of geomechanics for over 30 years. An author of 184 journal publications, 112 conference publications, 46 technical reports and the geotechnical engineering textbook The Engineering of Foundations, Slopes and Retaining Structures, Prof. Salgado has received several awards, including the ASCE Richard R. Torrens Award, ASCE Huber Research Prize, ASCE Arthur Casagrande Award, the ICE Geotechnical Research Medal, the Excellent Contributions Award of the International Association for Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics (IACMAG), the Shamsher Prakash Award, and the Scott Sloan Best Paper Award for a paper published in Elsevier’s Computer and Geotechnics. Prof. Salgado's 240 articles indexed by Scopus have been cited 10597 times; his Scopus h-Index is 53 (as of 1/14/2026). He is a Fellow of ASCE and has been inducted as a Diplomate (now Board Certified Geotechnical Engineer) into the GeoAcademy of the ASCE GeoInstitute. He was the Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering of the American Society of Civil Engineers from 2019-2023 and serves on the board of several other journals. He has taught 15 different courses at Purdue University, including a Plasticity Theory course taken by students from across the College of Engineering. He has advised or co-advised 36 Ph.D. students, 8 research M.S. students, and numerous non-thesis M.S. students, visiting scholars and undergraduate students.
Selected Research Projects
Teaching Activity
CE 383 Geotechnical Engineering I
CE 483 Geotechnical Engineering II
CE 580 Advanced Soil Mechanics
CE 585 Dams
CE 587 Soil Dynamics
CE 680 Theoretical Soil Mechanics
CE 683 Advanced Foundation Engineering
CE 687 Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering
CE 697A Plasticity Theory
CE 697B Special Foundations
Honors & Awards
Computers and Geotechnics Outstanding Reviewer, Elsevier, 2015
Geotechnical Research Medal, Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), 2015 (best ICE geotechnical engineering paper, published in Géotechnique in 2014)
Distinguished Visiting Researcher, CAPES, Brazil, selected in 2013
Distinguished Foreign Expert (1000 Scholars Plan of the Chinese Federal Government), selected in 2013 (unable to participate due to time constraints)
Diplomate, Academy of Geoprofessionals, ASCE, 2012
Southeast University Fellow, Southeast University, China, 2011
Fellow, American Society of Civil Engineers, ASCE, elected in 2011
Invited Participant, NAE U.S.-China Frontiers of Engineering Program, 2009
Invited Paper to the 60th Anniversary Issue of Géotechnique
Excellent Contributions Award, IACMAG, 2008
Invited Participant, NAE Frontiers of Engineering Program, 2005
Shamsher Prakash Research Award, 2005
ASCE Walter L. Huber Research Prize, 2004
Gledden Senior Fellowship, University of Western Australia, 2000
ASCE Arthur Casagrande Professional Development Award, 1999
National Science Foundation Research Initiation Award, 1994
Parker-Trask Graduate Fellowship, University of California, Berkeley, 1989-90
Selected Publications