Young Professor Paper Competition

2024 Submissions are closed | 2025 Call for Abstracts will open on October 7, 2024

award recipients posing with plaques

DFI and the DFI Educational Trust hold an Annual Young Professor Paper Competition to help bridge the gap between practice and study.

Competition Details

All professors with abstracts submitted will be included in the paper competition, unless the subject matter is deemed inappropriate. Papers will be judged based on their submitted drafts. Comments will be offered to the winning paper author for preparation of the final version.

The primary author of the winning paper will be invited to attend the DFI Annual Conference on Deep Foundations to present her/his paper. Conference registration, two nights of lodging, and a $1,000 stipend for travel expenses will be provided to the winner.

Both the winner and runners-up are invited to submit their papers for publication in the DFI Journal and receive a library of up to 20 DFI publications and a gratis two-year DFI Individual Membership.

Criteria for Submissions

  1. Paper must be primarily concerned with the design and construction of deep foundations/excavations.
  2. The candidate professor should be a full-time entry-level member of the faculty of an accredited college or university, engaged in teaching and/or research in any of the professional fields including engineering/construction/geological sciences.
  3. Paper must be based on the professor’s own work, and may include contributions from the professor’s research student(s) as secondary author(s).

Award Recipients

Many award recipients of the Young Professor Paper Competition have their papers available for purchase online at the DFI Journal.

Award Year Recipient Affiliation

2020

University of California, Davis

2018

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Northwestern University

2017

Portland State University (PSU)

2015

University of Rhode Island

2014

Temple University

2013

Oregon State University (OSU)

2012

University of Colorado Boulder

2011

University of California Irvine and University of Chile

2010

California State University Fullerton

2009

Debra Laefer
University College Dublin

2008

Lance A. Roberts
South Dakota School of Mines and Technology

2006

Thomas J. Weaver
University of Idaho

2005

Monica Prezzi
Purdue University
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