EllenRathje

Bio
Dr. Ellen M. Rathje is the Janet S. Cockrell Centennial Chair in the Fariborz Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering and a senior research scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG) at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests include seismic site response analysis, seismic slope stability, earthquake-induced ground failure and remote sensing. She has published over 100 papers on these topics and has supervised the research of over 30 graduate students. Her research has been funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the State of Texas and the United Nations Development Program.

Rathje is the principal investigator (PI) for the development of the DesignSafe cyberinfrastructure, funded by the NSF’s Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI). She is part of the leadership team for the TexNet Seismic Monitoring Program, housed at the Bureau of Economic Geology of UT. She is also a founding member and previous co-chair of the Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance (GEER) Association, the pre-eminent organization in the world coordinating geotechnical investigations after extreme events, such as earthquakes and floods.  

Much of her consulting work is associated with site response and seismic hazard studies for nuclear facilities around the globe, including the Thyspunt Nuclear Site in South Africa, four existing nuclear power plants in Taiwan operated by Taipower and multiple nuclear facilities at the Idaho National Laboratory.

She is currently a member of the board of directors of the International Association for Earthquake Engineering (IAEE) and also a member of the NSF Advisory Committee for Cyberinfrastructure (ACCI).  She has previously served on the Committee on Geological and Geotechnical Engineering (COGGE) for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, the Board of Directors for the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) and the USGS Scientific Earthquake Studies Advisory Committee.

Rathje has been honored with various research awards, including the 2022 Peck Award and Lecture from the Geo-Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the 2018 William B. Joyner Lecture Award from the Seismological Society of America and EERI, the Huber Research Prize from ASCE in 2010, the Hogentogler Award for outstanding paper from ASTM Committee D18 in 2010, the Shamsher Prakash Research Award in 2007, the Shah Innovation Prize from EERI in 2006, and the Casagrande Award from ASCE in 2002. She was elected Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2016.

Educational Qualifications
Ph.D., Civil Engineering, University of California at Berkeley, 1997
M.S., Civil Engineering, University of California at Berkeley, 1994
B.S., Civil Engineering, Cornell University, 1993

Select Awards & Honors

• National Academy of Engineering member (2025)
• Ralph B. Peck Award – American Society of Civil Engineers (2022)
• William B. Joyner Lecture Award – Seismological Society of America (2018)
• American Society of Civil Engineers fellow (2016)
• Huber Research Prize – American Society of Civil Engineers (2010)
• CAREER Award – National Science Foundation (2000)

Related Websites
Rathje Research Group
Center for Transportation Research
Geotechnical Extreme Event Reconnaissance Association
TexNet Seismological Network
DesignSafe
Geotechnical Research Group

Select Publications