MEMBER PROFILE Amy Cerato: Blending Academic Research with Industry Needs When Professor Amy Cerato, P.E., was growing up, she didn’t hear the word “engineer” until she was in junior high school. Today, she is a widely admired engineer and a gifted researcher and educator according to many of her peers. Looking back to when the profession first attracted her interest, she recalls an eye- opening high school internship in the Cumberland Gap National Historic Park in Kentucky. Seeing how much needed to be done sparked her later recognition of the connection between geotechnical engi- neering and the environment. Topping Ce r a to’s long l i s t of accomplishments and honors is the award given to her in 2009 by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Each year, OSTP selects 100 individuals in the scientific disciplines and invites them to the White House. Cerato was one of only 15 awardees invited to speak. She was also the only civil engineer in that year’s competition and one of very few women of the 100 chosen. Becoming an Engineer When Cerato began at Lafayette College, she thought of becoming an environmental engineer. After taking two of Professor Mary Roth’s geotechnical engineering classes, she decided that geotechnical engi- neering was much more interesting. After getting her B.S. in civil engineering at Lafayette, Cerato moved north to the Uni- versity of Massachusetts (UMass) at Amherst. There, she earned two M.S. degrees, one in civil engineering and one in geosciences. She capped her education at UMass with a Ph.D. in geotechnical engineering, and has taught at the University of Oklahoma (OU) in Norman for 12 years. Feedback from the Real World Two subjects have dominated Cerato’s career. One is engaging students in the “real” world of engineering, consulting, AUTHOR Virginia Fairweather DEEP FOUNDATIONS • JAN/FEB 2017 • 65 construction and contracting, with the goal of having students better understand the classroom theory and apply it correctly in practice. In 2014, she started Cerato Geo- technical Engineering, where she co- teaches and trains laboratory technicians how to conduct soil laboratory testing and report results to maintain their state certi- fications. It allows her to be a consultant in the deep foundation design and soil laboratory and in-situ testing arenas. This work helps her bring real projects to students and gives her an oppor- tunity to engage local consultants and con- tractors in her classes. Her students benefit from their interaction with engineering practice and feedback from practicing engineers. The other main focus of Cerato’s work has been her helical piles research. Her involvement goes back to graduate school where she performed tension tests to determine capacity for applications such as cell towers. In Oklahoma, her interest in helical piles morphed into understanding how helical piles would perform under cyclic loads created by the wind on small, guyed wind turbines. This tied into her interest in expansive soils, a problematic shrink-swell soil in Oklahoma and else- where. Dr. Priscilla Nelson, professor and head of the Department of Mining, Color- ado School of Mines, calls Cerato a gifted researcher and says her “truly innovative work has resulted in breakthroughs in understanding expansive soil behavior.” Howard Perko, Ph.D, P.E., director of engineering at Magnum Geo-Solutions, Fort Collins, Colo., says Cerato has a “unique ability to blend significant academic and research contributions with industry relationships.” An excellent example is a recent shake table test of She is an “exceptional engineer, teacher and scholar whose work has had an impact on the geotechnical profession.” helical piles led by Cerato at the University of San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering. She is on the DFI He l i c a l P i l e s and Tiebacks Committee, and notes that the successful test was partially financed with $22,000 from DFI’s Committee Project Fund, while manufacturers provided the major portion of the $154,000 cost. Cerato says the test results exceeded her expectations. As a result, there are now videos of the test that professional engineers and engineering students can watch and learn from at https://vimeo.com/167773622. Her work on helical piles has been helpful at home as well. Cerato has lived in Norman for 12 years and her own house had a badly designed foundation. One half of her house is on soft, silty alluvial soils and had settled due to a heavy fireplace on that part of the plot. The solution was to place five, 27 ft (8.2 m) long helical piles into hard sandstone to mitigate the foun- dation damage. Fortunately, her husband is a contractor. Field Trips At OU, Cerato has a full load: she currently advises two M.S. students, two Ph.D. students and two undergraduate students in her research group, and teaches two to three courses per year. One of her graduate courses is an in-situ and laboratory testing
