Cording, Davisson, Fernandez, Hendron, Lenzini, Mesri and Nieto Geotechnical Laboratory

The geotechnical engineering program at Illinois has its foundation in the earliest days of the university, when civil engineering students studied topics like tunneling and mining engineering. The early years of the geotechnical group were dominated by Ralph B. Peck, Thomas H. Thorburn, Herbert O. Ireland and Donald U. Deere, with Karl Terzaghi as visiting research professor. Later waves of faculty further contributed to the growing reputation of geotechnical engineering at Illinois. Edward J. Cording, Melvin T. "Tom" Davisson, Gabriel G. Fernandez, Alfred J. “Skip” Hendron Jr., Gholamreza Mesri, Peter A. Lenzini and Alberto S. Nieto are among those names, and they are being honored with a named laboratory in the new addition. Additional funding is required to fully furnish and equip this lab.