Professor Benito J. Mariñas is the head of the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He earned a Ph.D. degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1989. He is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Harold Munson Outstanding Teacher Award, the Ross Judson Buck '07 Outstanding Counselor Award, and the Arthur and Virginia Nauman Faculty Scholar Award. His research interests lie in various mechanistic aspects of