Mete Avni Sözen (22 May 1930 – 5 April 2018) was Kettelhut Distinguished Professor of

Structural Engineering Structural engineering is a sub-discipline of civil engineering in which structural engineers are trained to design the 'bones and joints' that create the form and shape of human-made Structure#Load-bearing, structures. Structural engineers also ...

Purdue University Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...

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, United States from 1992 to 2018.

Academic career

Sozen earned his undergraduate education at the Engineering School of

Robert College The American Robert College of Istanbul ( or ), often abbreviated as Robert or RC, is a Selective school, highly selective, Independent school, independent, mixed-sex education, co-educational, Education in Turkey#Private schools, private Second ...

in Istanbul (1951), and his master's (1952) and doctoral degrees (1957) from the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

. He earned his Ph.D. under the direction of Chester P. Siess and Nathan M. Newmark performing experimental studies to develop theories governing the shear strength of prestressed concrete girders. He then began his academic career at

where he served on the faculty from 1957 through 1992. The following students completed their Ph.D. dissertation under the direction of Mete Sozen:

Earthquake engineering

With funding from the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

and technical support from

MTS Systems Corporation MTS Systems Corporation (MTS) is a supplier of test systems and industrial position sensors. The company provides test and measurement products to determine the performance and reliability of vehicles, aircraft, civil structures, biomedical mater ...

Sozen, Shunsuke Otani, Polat Gulkan, and Norbert Nielsen developed the first earthquake shaking simulators in the United States in 1967, which was housed at University of Illinois.

Other contributions

Besides his academic interest in the development of design codes for concrete structures, Sozen was notable for his contributions to the official post

9/11 The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

–government studies of terrorist attacks, including the

Oklahoma City bombing The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, United States, on April 19, 1995. The bombing remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. Perpetr ...

, and

The Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense, in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The building was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As ...

. Sozen also led a team that created an engineering simulation of

American Airlines Flight 11 American Airlines Flight 11 was a domestic Airline, passenger flight that was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists on the morning of September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. The hijacked airliner was deliberately crashed into ...

crashing into the North Tower of the

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. The computer–generated visualizations were made entirely from the simulation data. In 1977, he was elected to the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...

.Dr. Mete A. Sozen
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References

External links

* https://engineering.purdue.edu/CE/AboutUs/News/Structures_Features/mete-a-sozen-a-collection-of-personal-remembrances {{DEFAULTSORT:Sozen, Mete 1930 births 2018 deaths Structural engineers Engineering academics Engineers from Istanbul Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Purdue University faculty Robert College alumni Turkish emigrants to the United States Grainger College of Engineering alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty

Academic career

Earthquake engineering

Other contributions

References

Further reading

External links