John Rudnicki earned his Bachelor’s (1973), Master’s (1974), and Ph.D. (1977) degrees from Brown University. After a postdoctoral fellowship in Geophysics at Caltech, he became Assistant Professor in the Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics at the University of Illinois in 1978. In 1981, he moved to Northwestern University where he is now Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. His research has been the area of inelastic behavior and failure of geomaterials. He has been especially interested in deformation instabilities and the effects of coupling between deformation and fluid diffusion with applications to fault instability, quantification of energy radiation from earthquakes and environment- and resource-related geomechanics.

He is a Fellow of American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Engineering Mechanics Institute and the American Rock Mechanics Association. He has received the Maurice A. Biot Medal (ASCE), the Daniel C. Drucker Medal (ASME), the Brown Alumni Engineering Medal, and the Society of Engineering Science Medal. He was the Advisor of the year in 2009 in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science and in 2010 he was named to the Honor Roll for Faculty and Administrators by the Associated Student Government of Northwestern University. He has held a variety of editorial and committee assignments including chairman of the Geosciences Council for the Department of Energy Basic Energy Sciences and Advisory Council of the Southern California Earthquake Center.

SCEC Participation

SCEC Advisory Council, Member (2005 - 2009)