Robert J. Connor, Professor of Civil Engineering and Director of the S-BRITE Center at Purdue University, was recently selected to receive the 2018 AISC T.R. Higgins Lectureship Award.

Presented annually, this prestigious award recognizes a lecturer and author whose technical paper or papers are considered an outstanding contribution to engineering literature on fabricated structural steel.

Dr. Connor has been working in the area of fatigue, fracture, and other performance and durability issues related to steel bridges for over 20 years. He has published articles in conference proceedings and technical journals, mostly related to fatigue and fracture issues in steel structures, field inspection, and failure investigations. Dr. Connor has been the principal investigator on a number of NCHRP Projects, having successfully completed five (5) NCHRP Projects as PI and three as Co-PI.

Dr. Connor’s research interests include fatigue and fracture of steel structures, field testing and remote monitoring of structures, bridge inspection reliability, and risk-based inspection methods. He was selected to receive the George S. Richardson Medal in 2016, an AISC Special Achievement Award in 2012, and was the first recipient of the Robert J. Dexter Memorial Lecture Award in 2005.

More information on the T.R. Higgins award can be found at AISC’s website.