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Accolades: Alshibli and Hamel Shine at Conferences

Alshibli Delivers Keynote Address at International Geotechnical Conference

Khalid AlshibliCEE Professor Khalid Alshibli gave a keynote lecture at the IS-Atlanta 2018, an international symposium organized under the auspices of Technical Committee 105 (Geo-Mechanics from Micro to Macro) of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering.

His lecture, entitled “Particle Level Constitutive Behavior of Sand,” highlighted the importance of considering the anisotropic behavior (i.e. different engineering properties when loading a sand grain in different directions) when compressing an individual sand grain. He is the first researcher in the geomechanics field to discover that individual sand grains exhibit anisotropic behavior. Understanding the interaction between sand grains using 3D experimental measurements has a critical impact on developing new theories about the behavior of sand.


Hamel Receives IEEE Leadership Award

Bill Hamel>MABE Professor Bill Hamel received the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society George Saridis Leadership Award in Robotics and Automation at the 2018 IEEE/Robotics Society of Japan International Conference on Robotics and Intelligent Systems held in Madrid, Spain, October 1-5, 2018.

This award is the society’s top award for leadership, and recognizes outstanding contributions of an individual for his/her exceptional leadership, and dedication that benefit the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. The award is named in honor of Professor George Saridis, the Founding President of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Council, which later became the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, who exemplified the characteristics sought in nominees for this award. The citation used in Professor Hamel’s award is “For continued leadership that has significantly contributed to the growth and development of robotics in hazardous environments and to the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society.”

Hamel is a professor and former head of MABE. Prior to joining the University of Tennessee, he worked for 31 years at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory where he led and performed research and development in the general areas of robotics, automation, and remote systems for hazardous nuclear, space, and military applications. He is a fellow of the IEEE and the ASME. He was the 2015 recipient of the American Nuclear Society’s Ray Goertz Award for contributions to robotics and remote handling.