The Purdue University Board of Trustees on Friday (April 12) ratified the naming of Robert J. Connor as the Jack and Kay Hockema Professor in Civil Engineering.

Connor is among the world’s foremost experts on the fatigue and fracture of steel bridges and highly regarded in the field of structural engineering. He has consulted on the majority of steel bridge failures in America in recent years, and his research on steel bridge fracture, fatigue, failure analysis and design has led to many important technical standards. Connor is an award-winning instructor, the director of the Center for the Aging Infrastructure and the Steel Bridge Research, Inspection, Training and Education Engineering Center (S-BRITE) and the associate director of the Bowen Laboratory for Large-Scale Civil Engineering Research.

Source: Purdue trustees approve named professorships, new IUPUI degree