The Grainger College of Engineering

Karl S. Pister

Karl S. Pister
Karl S. Pister
To Karl S. Pister, teacher, scholar, researcher, and administrator, for his original design of structures subjected to earthquake loadings, for his significant contributions toward the development of constitutive models for engineering materials, and for his outstanding leadership in engineering administration.

Dean, College of Engineering, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley California

  • PhD, Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, 1952

Dr. Pister received his BS and MS degrees in civil engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and served as an instructor there before coming to UIUC to do his doctoral work. He returned to Berkeley as an assistant professor of civil engineering in 1952. His major area of research has been the optimal design of structures subjected to earthquake loading and he is now also working in the interdisciplinary field of interactive computer aided design. In addition to his research and teaching activities and duties as dean, he has served as chairman of the University of California system-wide Academic Council and Assembly of the Academic Senate. He is faculty representative to the Board of Regents and has been chairman of the Berkeley Division Committee on Senate Policy and the University Committee on Educational Policy of the Academic Senate.

Dr. Pister was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering for his contributions toward the development of constitutive models for engineering materials. His other honors include two Fulbright Scholarships, the Wason Medal for Research of the American Concrete Institute, fellowship in the American Academy of Mechanics, and the Richard Merton Guest Professorship at the University of Stuttgart, West Germany.

Current as of 1982.