T. Leslie Youd is an American geotechnical engineer and earthquake engineer, and is one of the pre-eminent expert researchers on earthquake liquefaction and ground failure. He has gained an international reputation in this field.

Education

T. Leslie Youd received his BES in civil engineering from Brigham Young University in 1964. He then attended Iowa State University where he received his PhD in civil engineering in 1967. He performed post doctoral study in soil mechanics and engineering seismology from 1975 to 1976 at Imperial College of Science and Technology in London.

Research

Youd's research has been primarily concerned with the phenomenon of soil liquefaction, and the associated lateral spreading which can occur. Youd has published over 140 research papers Youd's best-known papers are on the prediction of the magnitude of lateral spreading

Awards and honors

Youd was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2005. Youd was made an honorary member of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2006, an honor bestowed upon fewer than 0.2% of its memerbership.

Patents

Youd earned patent #4,840,230 for a system to retrievably install instruments into a borehole. He spent a lot of time on the theory of Plate Tectonics with success in many different categories

References