Jun 28, 2007 - Claremont, Calif. - Ziyad “Zee” Durón ’81, Jude and Eileen Laspa Professor of Engineering, has been named to succeed Anthony Bright as chair of the Department of Engineering beginning July 1, 2007.

Durón, who began his tenure at HMC as assistant professor of engineering in 1987, was instrumental in establishing three innovative fellowship programs that provide students with research opportunities at HMC: the Frank and Frances De Pietro Fellowship in Civil Engineering (which Durón directs), the Mary Jane and Robert Engman Research Fellowship Program in Engineering and the Jay Wolkin ’99 and Clay Family Research Fellowship.

“It is an honor to serve the Department of Engineering at Harvey Mudd College as chair, particularly when one thinks back over the department’s history,” Durón said. “The founding faculty in our department sacrificed a lot for what has become one of the leading undergraduate engineering programs in the country. My role will be to work within the context of the college and our strategic initiatives to secure the needed resources for our engineering faculty that will enable them to enhance the learning experiences for our majors.”

After graduating from HMC, Durón went on to earn his M.S. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology. Before joining the faculty at HMC, he served as an engineer at Arco Oil and Gas Company and the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, was a member of the technical staff at The Aerospace Corporation and was a visiting research associate at Caltech.

In 2004, Durón was recognized as one of the nation’s brightest young engineers by being selected to participate in the National Academy of Engineering’s Frontiers of Engineering symposium. The event brought together engineers ages 30 to 45 who are performing cutting-edge engineering research and technical work in a variety of disciplines.

Durón’s research interests include earthquake, aerospace and fire engineering; system characterization and structural dynamics. He has led experimental field tests on large structures and launch vehicles. His active areas of research include development of field procedures for monitoring impending collapse in burning buildings, development of progressive monitoring techniques for damaged structures, and development of enhanced analysis techniques that transform measured vibration responses from damaged structures and create stability indicators allowing spatial and time evaluation of changing conditions in the structure.

Durón has also worked on the development of field test procedures for large civil structures, including large concrete dams, and the correlation of measured field responses and observed behavior to numerical models that can be used to evaluate seismic and operational performance under varying load conditions.