ASCE has honored Sri Rajah, Ph.D., P.E., GE, SE, P.Eng, ENV SP, F.ASCE, with the 2023 Stephen D. Bechtel Pipeline Engineering Award for his more than three decades of distinguished service to the pipeline engineering community and his significant contributions to the advancement of pipeline seismic design, hydraulic design, condition and risk assessment approaches, failure analysis, and pipeline evaluation for water and wastewater pipeline conveyance systems.
Rajah has over three decades of experience in civil engineering, technical, and project management leadership roles with specialized focus in structural, geotechnical, seismic, and hydraulic aspects of pipeline engineering, providing design, evaluation, condition assessment, risk assessment, failure analysis, and litigation support services. He has led several unique, multidisciplinary, and award-winning projects in his career, and has published over 60 technical papers related to pipeline design. He is a principal engineer with CDM Smith and serves as the firm’s discipline leader and subject matter expert for seismic analysis and design.
Rajah has an extensive and continuous history of volunteering with ASCE, particularly with the Pipeline Division, as a contributing member and in various leadership roles (secretary, vice chair, and chair) for multiple technical and task committees, as an associate editor of the ASCE Journal of Pipeline Systems Engineering and Practice, and as a volunteer member in various conference steering committees and technical program committees. In 2014, he served as the conference co-chair of the Pipelines Conference held in Portland, Oregon, and led that conference as one of the historical successes of the Pipeline Division. With the formation of the Utilities Engineering and Surveying Institute (UESI) in 2015, Rajah continued to volunteer with several technical and administrative committees in various volunteer leadership roles, including as the chair of UESI Standards and Publications Council (USPC), formerly known as the Standards Division of UESI.
The Stephen D. Bechtel Pipeline Engineering Award recognizes outstanding achievements by a member of ASCE who, through research, planning, design, or construction, has advanced the art, science, and technology of pipeline engineering.
