America’s research-active, geotechnical faculty members – a snapshot of the community

This paper is a snapshot in time of the personal backgrounds, educational training, professional ranking, and productivity levels of those individuals with respect to Compendex-listed journal paper. Important questions are raised not only as to issues of age, gender, and nationality, but as to where the professoriate in geotechnical engineering is coming from, what level of experience they are bringing to their positions, and their professional standing. The results of this paper raise several, possibly unexpected observations including the apparent role that small, private, undergraduate programs have in grooming future faculty members; the fact that most female faculty members come from only a handful of doctoral programs; the increasing productivity of junior faculty members; and the aging of the community with respect to succession planning. This document is intended to be a discussion document for succession planning for the wider community.