The American Society of Civil Engineers has awarded its 2012 Alfred M. Freudenthal Medal to Erik Vanmarcke, professor of civil and environmental engineering.

The society honored Vanmarcke for his work in developing computational models that are widely used by engineers for assessing the risks associated with random vibrations and uncertainties in material properties when protecting against earthquakes, wind and other hazards. Specifically, the selection committee cited Vanmarcke for “developing methods for probabilistic modeling based on random fields with applications to reliability and risk assessment in geotechnical, wind and earthquake engineering.”

The Freudenthal Medal is awarded every two years to recognize distinguished achievement in safety and reliability studies applicable to any branch of civil engineering.

Vanmarcke, who joined the Princeton faculty in 1985, is an affiliated faculty member of Princeton’s Bendheim Center for Finance, the Princeton Environmental Institute and the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials.