James Mitchell appointed to the New Orleans Hurricane Protection System external review panel
James Mitchell of Blacksburg, University Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, has been named by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) to be a team member of an external review panel commissioned as part of the federal effort to provide credible answers to the fundamental questions concerning the performance of the hurricane protection system in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
Along with the ASCE external review panel, the federal response includes an Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force (IPET), organized by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and a National Research Council (NRC) independent review panel, convened at the direction of the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld also authorized ASCE to convene an external review panel to conduct continuing expert peer review of the work performed by IPET, and to report findings directly to NRC.
University of Texas at Dallas President David Daniel, a renowned civil engineer and member of the National Academy of Engineering, will chair the external review panel. Panel members are recognized authorities in engineering and science.
The study is expected to take approximately eight months. All three panels’ findings will be made available to the public. For more information about the external review panel and biographical information about the team members, visit http://www.asce.org.
Mitchell, who was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1976, joined the Virginia Tech faculty in 1994 as the first Charles E. Via Jr. Professor of Civil Engineering. He came to Tech from the University of California at Berkeley, where he held an endowed chair and conducted research in both the Institute of Transportation Studies and the Earthquake Engineering Research Center. During his career, much of his research has focused on fundamental aspects of the engineering properties and behavior of soils and the development of understanding based on compositional and physical and chemical interactions of soil particles.
Mitchell received his bachelor’s degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a master’s degree and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
