Biography

Dr. Fenton has published more than 45 papers since 1984, largely in the area of reliability in geotechnical engineering. For his research work, he won the Gowski Medal from the Engineering Institute of Canada in 1986 and the George Stephenson Medal from the Institution of Civil Engineers of the United Kingdom in 1993. His latest research interests include:

Development of a reliability-based design code in geotechnical engineering; estimation of stochastic soil parameters; modeling of the engineering behaviour of soil in the presence of spatially random soil properties: Topics include bearing capacity, settlement, active and passive earth pressures, and slope stability; modeling of soil liquefaction, including the stochastic spatial variation of the soil properties, under a space-time random field of earthquake ground motions; development of random field simulation computer codes. 

Dr. Fenton relishes every challenge as an opportunity to interact with students and help them find solutions. “I strive to have my students take two things away from my course: one, that the concepts are not that difficult; and two that these concepts will prove very useful in their careers.”  Gordon prefers teaching by example rather than pure theory, and his students appreciate finding new solutions through genuine collaboration.

Robertson / Artimy / Aslam / Ilow / Phillips / Sivakumar / Sampalli