From: SDSU Senate Subject: 2010 - 2011 Senate Distinguished Professor Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:11:39 PDT To: Faculty and Staff From: SDSU Senate Subject: 2010 - 2011 Senate Distinguished Professor The SDSU University Senate is proud to honor the Senate Distinguished Professor and five college awardees for 2010-11. Please join us from 10 a.m. to noon on Monday, April 25, in Casa Real, as we rec ognize these outstanding colleagues. Breakfast will be served. Dr. Julio Valdes, Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineerin g, College of Engineering, is the 2010-11 Senate Distinguished Professor. Julio will be giving a lecture titled, "Clastic Soil Mechanics." Dr. Valdes will introduce physics-based definitions by which soils are classifie d and treated as engineering materials. Emphasis will be placed on the results of experimental studies that seek to identify emergent phenomena and behavior al terations caused by clastic action, i.e., the breakage of grains. Julio Valdes is an associate professor in the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering at San Diego State University. He received a Ph.D . in civil and environmental engineering, with an emphasis on geomechanics from The Georgia Institute of Technology in 2002. That year he joined the SDSU facul ty as an assistant professor. Dr. Valdes directs the SDSU Geo-Innovations Resea rch Laboratory. He has co-authored numerous publications with SDSU students on various topics including controllable filtration, wave-based experimental method s, and granular media behavior. The college awardees are: Christianna Alger - College of Education Andrew Cooksy - College of Sciences Joseph Price - College of Sciences Ming Tsou - College of Arts and Letters If you wish to attend the ceremony, please RSVP to Allison Bobrow, senate coordi nator at senate@mail.sdsu by Wednesday, April 20.