Kara Peterman Receives Early Career Award from American Institute of Steel Construction

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Assistant professor Kara Peterman, civil and environmental engineering, recently was recognized with the Terry Peshia Early Career Faculty Award from the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC).

The award, which includes a $2,500 honorarium, provides recognition to faculty who demonstrate promise in the areas of structural steel research, teaching and other contributions to the structural steel industry. At UMass, Peterman conducts research on cold-formed and hot-rolled steel system behavior, seismic response of those systems, and the stability of thin-walled steel members. Peterman is a member of the American Iron and Steel Institute Committee on Specifications, chairing the test-based design subcommittee. She also serves on the Committee on Framing Standards. Peterman was elected to the executive committee of the Cold-Formed Steel Engineers Institute and chairs the education committee. She also chairs the Thin-Walled Structures Task Force of the Structural Stability Research Council (SSRC).

Peterman recently received the 2021 McGuire Award for Junior Researchers from SSRC and the 2020 UMass Amherst ASCE Student Chapter Outstanding Faculty Award. In 2018 she received the Norman Medal, the American Society of Civil Engineers’ highest honor for a technical paper. At UMass, Peterman teaches courses in statics, strength of materials, structural design, and advanced steel design. Prior to joining UMass, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Northeastern University and received her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University.

The Terry Peshia Early Career Faculty Awards are named in honor of the late Terry Peshia, chairman and CEO of Garbe Iron Works, Inc., in Aurora, Ill. The awards recognize tenure-track faculty who demonstrate exceptional promise in the areas of structural steel research, teaching, and other contributions to the structural steel industry.

AISC honored 12 leaders across the structural steel design, construction, and academic communities with prestigious awards for their achievements and contributions. The awards recognize individuals who have made a significant difference in the success of the fabricated structural steel industry. Headquartered in Chicago, AISC is a non-partisan, not-for-profit technical institute and trade association established in 1921 to serve the structural steel design community and construction industry. AISC's mission is to make structural steel the material of choice by being the leader in structural steel-related technical and market-building activities, including specification and code development, research, education, technical assistance, quality certification, standardization, market development, and advocacy. AISC has a long tradition of service to the steel construction industry of providing timely and reliable information.