Peter A. Lenzini

Peter A. Lenzini holds a B.S. (Southern Illinois University 1968) in engineering, and a M.S. (University of Illinois 1971) in civil engineering, with a major in structural engineering and a minor in soil mechanics and foundation engineering. While pursuing his M.S. degree, Mr. Lenzini was employed full-time as a structural design engineer working on the design of bridges, buildings and wastewater treatment structures. After receiving his M.S., he was employed as a geotechnical engineer in California where he worked on foundation investigations and designs for a variety of structures, landslide investigations and design of remedial measures, and studies for remediation of earthquake damage. From 1973 until 1977, he was a research and teaching assistant at the University of Illinois while he resumed graduate studies in geotechnical engineering and in glacial, structural, and engineering geology. In 1981 he became a Lecturer in the Department of Civil Engineering and in 1999 became the Department’s Undergraduate Advisor. He serves as the Department representative on the College of Engineering Design Council and is a member of the Advisory Committee on the Women in Engineering Program. Mr. Lenzini has taught undergraduate courses on introductory soil mechanics and foundation engineering and geotechnical engineering, and a graduate class in applied soil mechanics. He has frequently lectured in the graduate courses on case histories in foundation engineering and earth dams, and in 1998 developed and taught the Department’s first senior design project course. He has also taught portions of several short courses for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (F.E.R.C.) on shear strength and slope stability of embankment dams and on rock foundations for concrete dams. He drafted portions of the engineering manuals for the stability analysis of earth dams for F.E.R.C. and for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. He is presently working with Ralph Peck and Walter Hanson on the 3rd edition of the textbook, Foundation Engineering.

Mr. Lenzini has served on Ph.D. committees on stability of slopes, liquefaction, deep foundations, and behavior of foundations on sand. He has maintained an active consulting practice focusing on failure investigations of foundations, slopes, excavations, and retaining structures, as well as on construction problems. He has given depositions and testified as an expert witness in state courts of Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, and Wisconsin, and in the U.S. Court of Claims, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Board of Contact Appeals. Many of the cases in which Mr. Lenzini has participated are discussed as case histories in his classes and in seminars and lectures given to students and practicing engineers.

Mr. Lenzini is a member of ASCE and is licensed as a Civil Engineer in California and as a Professional Engineer in Illinois.

In 1993, Mr. Lenzini received the American Society of Civil Engineers Student Chapter Outstanding Instructor Award. He has been recognized several times for excellence in teaching and advising, including being named to the list of outstanding instructors as rated by students and receiving Accenture Awards for outstanding advising.

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