C.J. Riley, Ph.D., P.E., F.ASCE, professor and graduate program director for the civil engineering department at Oregon Institute of Technology, has been named a fellow by the ASCE Board of Direction.
Riley's most visible constructed projects are on the Oregon Tech Klamath Falls campus, where he developed the Structures Laboratory in Cornett Hall with a strong floor–strong wall, 50-kip hydraulic actuators, and precision servo controls, and instrumentation. He provided the project vision and structural design for The Basin, a steel connections teaching sculpture that also represents the water-related stakeholders and challenges in the Klamath River basin.
He has recently provided structural design support and coordinated student structural analysis of Fibonnaci’s Arc, a 40-foot-tall flexible steel sculpture installed on the Klamath Falls campus in fall 2021. His creativity and focus on teaching with interactive structures are on display in Cornett Hall, where the Mechanics Demonstrator, an instrumented cantilever swing, and Hooke's Bench provide a way to explore engineering mechanics concepts at a human scale.
Riley’s professional practice prior to academia was in bridge rating with Wyoming DOT. He has brought a passion for bridges to Oregon, regularly conducting bridge tours with his students and engaging in research into the dynamic response of structures to support refined methods of load rating.
He has dedicated his time in the profession to the goal of excellence in civil engineering education and university education broadly, and his achievements can be seen in a mutually benefiting list of activities with ASCE and the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). His long history of service to ASCE ranges over a variety of positions, leadership in the ASEE Civil Engineering Division, faculty professional development efforts at Oregon Institute of Technology, and scholarly work that reinforces his work in each of these.
Riley has also served as the ASCE-AGC student chapter faculty advisor at Oregon Tech (the past 13 years), president of the ASCE Southern Oregon Group, historian for the ASCE Oregon Section, and associate editor for ASCE’s Journal of Civil Engineering Education. As well, he can be found mentoring at the ASCE Excellence in Civil Engineering Education (ExCEEd) Teaching Workshops or supporting their evolution by serving on relevant committees.
He has served in multiple leadership roles with the Civil Engineering Division of ASEE and publishes and presents regularly at the national conference. His enthusiasm for faculty professional development ensured that the ExCEEd teaching workshop principles were used to develop a teaching workshop for all faculty at Oregon Tech, where he also co-chaired a major effort to reform general education.
Riley was a student chapter president at Swarthmore College, where he earned his bachelor's degree in engineering, and a steel bridge team member at Colorado State University, where he earned his master’s and doctoral degrees.
