Dr. Ellen Rathje

Biography

Ellen M. Rathje is the Janet S. Cockrell Centennial Chair at the Fariborz Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a senior research scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG) at the same university. Her research focuses on geotechnical earthquake engineering, specifically in areas such as seismic site response, slope stability, and earthquake-induced ground failure. Rathje has published over 100 papers and has supervised research for 30 graduate students. Her work has been funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. Geological Survey, and U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, among others. She is the principal investigator for the development of the DesignSafe cyberinfrastructure, funded by NSF’s Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure. Additionally, she is involved with the TexNet Seismic Monitoring Program and has been a founding member and co-chair of the Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance Association. She has extensive consulting experience related to seismic hazard studies for nuclear facilities worldwide. Rathje has served on numerous committees and advisory boards, including the International Association of Earthquake Engineering and the NSF Advisory Committee on Cyberinfrastructure. She has received multiple awards for her research and was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2016.

Research Interests

Awards