The Leo Casagrande Fund is used to award $1,000 scholarship awards to graduate students pursuing a career in geotechnics in memory of Leo Casagrande. Background Leo Casagrande was born on September 17, 1903, in the small town of Haidenschaft (now Ajdovscina in modern Slovenia) in the southwestern part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Like other kids of that time and place, Leo, with his brother Arthur, faced ignorance and poverty. But, due to an intellectual and determined mother, they received elementary and secondary education, being partly home-schooled. Abruptly, World War I struck, and the family moved to Trieste then Vienna, where Leo attended high school. He entered Vienna Technical University, specializing in Structures, and then performed his first industrial designs as a structural engineer in Augsburg, Germany. In 1930, he followed his brother to the United States where they worked with Karl Terzaghi at MIT. When Terzaghi left again for Vienna in 1932, he took with him Leo who then earned a Doctorate from his Alma Mater.
The success of the construction and quality of the ‘Autobahn’ was due to the expertise of Leo Casagrande, who was appointed in 1934 Head of the Soil Mechanics Division of the ‘Inspector General for the German Highways’. Leo was incited to work there as the economic condition in Austria was poor and as he had moved to Berlin for a Professorship position at the Technological University’s Soil Mechanic Institute. During that period, Leo developed and improved the
techniques of ‘electro-osmosis’, removal of peat by blasting, improving subsurface frost and drainage conditions, and bridge substructure settlement analysis and mitigation. In particular, he acquired a German and a U.S. patent for his invention of a ‘Method of Hardening Soil’. Another conflict arrived, World War II, with its devastations and losses. At the end of the war, Leo was fortunate to be captured by the British and not the Russians. Leo moved to the United Kingdom where he worked for the “Building Research Station” in Watford, then immigrated, with his family, to Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1950. At Harvard, he was member of that remarkable team (with Arthur, Karl Terzaghi and his wife) teaching Soil Mechanics, Applied
Soil Mechanics, and Foundation and Earthwork Engineering. Leo was ‘The Gentle Professor’, the soft-spoken engineer. He was an imposing person, with his tall body, elongated features, and enigmatic smiling-face. Leo and Arthur worked together, through their “Casagrande Consultants” firm, on large dams and industrial projects around the world. In his honor, the Leo Casagrande Memorial Fund was established by the Boston Society of Civil Engineers Section (BSCES) of ASCE in 1990, to endow an annual scholarship to a senior or graduate geotechnical engineering student at a Massachusetts college or university. The fund is managed by the BSCES Geo-Institute. Application Guidelines
I - The applicant must satisfy at least one of the following conditions: - He/She is a senior in an undergraduate program at a Massachusetts College or University and has been accepted in a Graduate Geotechnical Program.
- He/She is a current graduate student at a Massachusetts College or University who has not previously been awarded the Leo Casagrande Scholarship.
II - The scholarship recipient shall submit a package which includes the following: - Transcripts from undergraduate study, and graduate school if applicable.
- GPA and class standing (if available).
- Two letters of recommendation – at least one from a college professor.
- Letter of acceptance to graduate school for geotechnical engineering and student’s reply.
- A short essay (no more than one page single sided) describing the person who most influenced the student’s decision to pursue a career in geotechnical engineering and why.
- A note describing other sources of funding for the student’s graduate study (i.e., financial need and how the award will be used).
Candidates for the scholarship are voted on by the Geo-Institute. Formal requests for application are made yearly in the BSCESNews stating the current deadline. Online nominations are always welcome! ONLINE NOMINATION |
