Sandra Houston

Sandra Houston is a long-standing member of the Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering faculty at Arizona State University. Houston’s contributions to the field of geotechnical engineering focus on unsaturated soils, including in particular advancement of methodologies for dealing with arid region problem soils, including collapsible and expansive soils. She is the regular instructor of undergraduate and graduate level foundation engineering classes and teaches Unsaturated Soil Mechanics. A heavy emphasis on the advancement of unsaturated soil mechanics into the practice of geotechnical engineering is evident by her professional service activities, research, and publications.

Houston has a long history of leadership in professional society organizations, particularly through participation in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the Geo-Institute of ASCE, and the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE). She is a past president of the Geo-Institute. Houston is a recipient of the William H. Wisely American Civil Engineer Award. She currently serves as the chair of the Unsaturated Soils Committee of the Geo-Institute of ASCE, as a member of the ISSMGE Committee on Unsaturated Soils, and as chair of the ASCE Committee on Diversity and Inclusion.