Construction Administration: Technical Consulting—The Intersection of Mythbusters, CSI, and Civil Engineering

The Master of Science in Construction Administration program at Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies proudly presents a talk on technical consulting.

The modern era of civilization is marked by immense networks of complicated, interdependent systems and rapidly evolving technologies. Many of these technologies, while born from academia, are implemented and refined in the world of industry. As today’s complex ideas are put into practice, there is an increasing tendency for things to fail, and an urgent desire to prevent such failures. This is the realm of technical consulting and the subject of this talk.

Several projects from structural engineering, including nuclear reliability analysis, earthquake reconnaissance, and storm surge analysis are presented to highlight the broader role of technical consultants in a world that increasingly depends on sophisticated engineering to protect itself from both natural and human-induced catastrophe.