2016 Award Recipient

Nominated by the American Society of Civil Engineers

Vladimir Shepsis, PhD, PE, Cost and Harbor Engineering, Inc., has been selected as the recipient of the 2016 Professional Engineer of the Year Award for his outstanding service to the engineering profession and his lifetime of achievement in excellence and innovation in coastal engineering. He has led the advancement of performance-based coastal engineering methodologies, development of innovative coastal engineering solutions, execution of cutting-edge research, and development of code requirements. These include developing new and improved numerical models and analytical procedures to simulate waves, river and tidal flow hydrodynamics, sediment transport, erosion and deposition, and bottom morphology changes.

He has had an extraordinary portfolio of coastal projects located in more than 30 countries throughout the world. He has provided essential engineering support for some of the most critical waterfront, maritime, and port/harbor projects that have been completed during the last several decades. During the recovery from Hurricane Katrina, he provided the State of Louisiana and local communities engineering support for reconstruction of shoreline protection and waterfront facilities. He led the coastal engineering effort to support the Texas recovery after Hurricane Ike and provided engineering support to the salvage of the grounded cruise ship, Costa Concordia, off the coast of Italy. Local projects include Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park Beach, the Bremerton Breakwater, conversion of the Anacortes paper mill site into a public park, the Mukilteo Beach project, and the Port of Klama Terminal Dredging project.

He participated in advisory and reviewing roles with the development of new federal, state, and local governments’ engineering standards and guidelines for coastal engineering. As a member of ASCE’s Mooring Analysis Task Committee, he participated in the development of engineering guidance for mooring of deep- draft vessels exposed to wave and passing ship impacts. To attract the next generation of coastal engineers, he volunteers to make presentations at high schools and universities.