Evaluation of Long-Term Performance of Transportation Earthworks Prone to Weather-Driven Deterioration Under Changing Climate

Amr M. Morsy, PhD, PE
Dr. Amr Morsy is a professional civil engineer with experience in both academia and industry. His research focuses on geotechnical engineering, transportation geotechnics, environmental geotechnics, and climate adaptation. He obtained his B.Eng and M.Sc. degrees in civil engineering from Cairo University in 2011 and 2013 respectively and obtained his PhD degree in civil engineering from The University of Texas at Austin in 2017. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow at The University of Texas at Austin in 2018 and as a practicing geotechnical engineer from 2018 to 2020. He later worked as a research associate at Loughborough University on the ACHILLES program grant from 2020 to 2022. He has been working as an assistant professor at California State University, Long Beach since 2022. As part of his academic experience, Dr. Morsy conducts research on geotechnical infrastructure deterioration and asset management, climate change impacts on geotechnical infrastructure, and geotechnical solutions for sustainable built environments. He has excelled in physical and numerical modeling of geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering systems, and in infrastructure instrumentation and laboratory experimentation. He participated in research projects sponsored by the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council of the UK Research and Innovation, the US Federal Highway Administration, the Geosynthetic Institute, and the Departments of Transportation of Texas and Indiana. As part of his professional consulting experience, Dr. Morsy conducts rigorous analyses, designs, and forensic evaluations for a range of slopes, retaining walls, reinforced soil structures, deep excavations, bridge foundations, waste containment facilities, tailings dams, and embankment dams. He assisted expert witnesses in cases involving collapse and poor performance of earth retaining structures. He provided solutions to geotechnical problems in a number of environmental remediation projects involving cleanup of superfund sites. He conducted multi-phase flow analyses for several infrastructure features including earthworks, embankment dams, and cover systems. Some of the consulting projects he participated in served the US Environmental Protection Agency, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, New York State and Indiana Departments of Transportation, Tennessee Valley Authority, New Jersey Transit, and several multinational private and public corporates.

Emma Varela
Emma Varela is a physics major in her junior year at California State University, Long Beach with a passion for the discipline and its interdisciplinary applications. Emma’s academic and research experiences have allowed her to explore the intersection of physics with other fields, such as engineering and climatology, while developing technical expertise and problem-solving skills. The research she is currently contributing to utilizes climate simulations to evaluate the deterioration of earthworks, with its ultimate aim being to develop innovative solutions with lasting impacts.