Adda Athanasopoulos-Zekkos, PhD

Assistant Professor, CEE Dept.
University of California, Berkeley
http://addazekkos.geoengineer.org/

President, US Universities Council for Geotechnical Education and Research
www.usucger.org

It is indeed heartbreaking to hear of the loss of such a great person. Prof. Woods is the type of person that makes the world a better place just by simply being in it.

I have known Prof. Woods all my life… He was my father’s PhD co-advisor (with the late Prof. Richart) between 1978-1981 at the University of Michigan, and instrumental to his experimental testing education. I was born during that time, and Prof. Woods and his wife Dixie were always there for my parents. This was a time when there were no weekly skype calls with people back home, no summer trips to Greece, so to my parents they became family. I have spent many afternoons in my stroller in the basement of the GG Brown Laboratory while my mother watched my father conduct his resonant column tests under the guidance of Prof. Woods

I was so happy that Prof. Woods and his wife were able to join us at our wedding in Greece in the summer of 2007, but it was perhaps even more exciting when one year later I joined the CEE faculty at UM and became his colleague! I have learned so much from him through conversations, research collaborations and story-telling. Many of you have commented on what an amazing engineer he was, how generous he was with his knowledge, so I don’t need to add to that. For me what stood out even more was the kind of person that he was. So caring, understanding, never condescending, never saying anything bad for anyone, always with constructive criticism, always there for you.

I feel like I lost a grandparent… I can only hope to be a little bit like him and carry the things he taught me.

We will miss you so much Prof. Woods, and I will always treasure the 11 years we got to be colleagues!

Adda

ps: I am attaching some personal photos of Prof. Woods (at our wedding, with my two boys, and with the UM Geo-Grad Students during one of our semi-annual lab cleaning days!)