Michele Maugeri (1944 - 2014)

On 1 November 2014, after a strong battle against illness, Professor Michele Maugeri passed away. Prof. Maugeri was a long-time Italian member of the ISSMGE Technical Committee on 'Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering and Associated Problems' (TC203).

Born in Acireale (Sicily) in 1944, he got the degree in Civil Engineering from the Politecnico di Torino, winning the award for the best thesis ("Technical aspects of a bridge across the Messina Strait") and the second prize in an international competition for the fixed link road and railway between Sicily and the mainland, banned by the Ministry of Public Works. The brilliant academic career developed at the University of Catania, where he was teaching since 1972, becoming Associate Professor in 1979 and then Full Professor of Geotechnical Engineering in 1990. His career was full of countless tasks of primary importance: he was a member of the Board of Public Works, member of the National Commission UNI "Construction Structural Engineering", member of the Task Group no. 6 on "Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Microzonation" of the European Association for Earthquake Engineering, chairman of the "ERTC 12 - Evaluation of Geotechnical Aspects of EC8", member of scientific and organizing committees of numerous national and international conferences. 

He also actively contributed to the life of his native Sicily, as a director of Banca Popolare Santa Venera at Acireale, and of Credit Valtellina today. He was Guest Editor of several special issues of national and international journals (including the recent issue n.3 of the Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering in 2014) and authored more than 300 scientific publications. Since 1990, Prof. Maugeri delivered keynote and special lectures in international conferences and workshops of different disciplines, helping extend the TC203 mission beyond the core industry. Recently, Prof. Maugeri was the Chairman of the very successful 2nd International Conference on "Performance-Based Design in Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering" of TC203, held in Taormina, 2012.

He was a scientific "ambassador" of geotechnical earthquake engineering at events organized by other learned societies. He often focused on engineering issues relevant to Italy in the fields of seismic geotechnics, mitigation of natural hazards and geosynthetics. Through his contributions, the Italian geotechnical community has maintained a strong and beneficial dialogue with the world.

He died at his home in Sicily, just one day after he retired from University of Catania. 

Source: ISSMGE's TC 203 website