246 Harry Bolton Seed

Memorial Tributes: Volume 5
HARRY BOLTON SEED 246
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Harry Bolton Seed
1922–1989
By James K. Mitchell
Harry Bolton Seed was born in Bolton, England, on August 19, 1922. He
studied at King's College, London University, receiving the B.Sc. in civil
engineering in 1944 and the Ph.D. in structural engineering in 1947. Following
two years as assistant lecturer at King's, he came to the United States to study
soil mechanics at Harvard University under the tutelage of Karl Terzaghi and
Arthur Casagrande. He received the S.M. from Harvard in 1948 and spent the
next year as an instructor. This was followed by a year as a foundation engineer
for Thomas Worcester, Incorporated, in Boston.
In 1950 Professor Seed joined the civil engineering faculty at the
University of California, where he spent the remainder of his career as an
engineering educator, researcher in geotechnical. engineering, and consultant to
numerous companies and government agencies. He built the program in
geotechnical engineering at Berkeley into one of the largest and best in the
world. A major factor in this development was his bringing colleagues together
from different areas of geotechnical engineering, including geological
engineering and rock mechanics, as well as soil mechanics and foundation
engineering. He served as chairman of the Civil Engineering Department from
1965 to 1971, a period during which it rose to number one ranking in the United
States for the quality of its graduate programs.
Professor Seed had an enormous impact on every area of

research activity in which he worked. His early work on the mechanics of pile
foundations still forms the basis of modern methods of pile-soil interaction. His
research on soil compaction and the influences of methods of compaction on
soil structure and mechanical properties provides the foundation for current
understanding. His contributions to analytical methods of pavement design were
of the first rank.
About 1960 he introduced the field of geotechnical earthquake
engineering, and he is recognized worldwide as the ''father'' of this field. His
pioneering studies included the development of methods for site response
analysis, for the analysis of soil-structure interaction, for seismicity evaluation,
and for assessment of liquefaction potential. The results of his research have led
to a total revision of concepts and methods for earthquake-resistant design of
earth dams, nuclear power plants, coastal facilities, and building foundations, as
well as revision of codes of practice, design procedures, and regulations. This
work, founded on sound scientific principles, has been adopted throughout the
world. He served as a consultant on projects all over the world and to virtually
every major federal agency and large engineering organization in the United
States.
Through his research Professor Seed developed design methods that
revolutionized many aspects of engineering practice and thinking. They have
had enormous influence on the safety of critical structures such as major dams,
nuclear power plants, and high-rise buildings. His investigations of major
disasters, such as the 1964 Great Alaska earthquake, the 1971 San Fernando
earthquake in California, the 1976 failure of the Teton Dam, the 1979 slide at
the Port of Nice in France, and the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, have, with the
aid of modern methods of analysis and experimental techniques, led to a basic
understanding of their causes and to the measures that must be taken to prevent
similar occurrences in the future. His selection by the government of Egypt,
under AID sponsorship, to make a seismic safety evaluation of the Aswan High
Dam placed the safety of literally millions of people in his hands. His work in
all these areas will have an impact on the world for generations to come.
Harry Seed's work as an engineering educator, scholar, and

servant of his profession was unsurpassed. He was the epitome of a model

scholar, devoted to the advancement of engineering science and practice. He
devoted large amounts of time to public service activities. He was always
brilliant as a public speaker and was recognized for years as the best lecturer
and teacher in his department. He guided fifty Ph.D. candidates to the
successful completion of their dissertation research; many of them have gone on
to distinguished careers of their own in the geotechnical engineering field. His
writings—nearly three hundred papers and reports—are exceptionally lucid and
insightful and provide eloquent testimony, as well as a lasting record of his
work. He was active, maintaining a full schedule of teaching, research, and
professional activity until very shortly before his death.
Professor Seed recieved many awards and honors for his contributions.
Among them are more awards from the American Society of Civil Engineers
(ASCE) than any other engineer in the history of the society. These include the
Norman Medal twice, the J. James Croes Medal three times, the Thomas A.
Middle-brooks Award four times, the Thomas Fitch Rowland Prize, the Arthur
M. Wellington Prize, the Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize,
and the Karl Terzaghi Award. For his excellence as an educator he received the
Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of California and the
Vincent Bendix Award and the Lamme Award from the American Society for
Engineering Education.
Other awards include election as fellow of King's College, London
University; the T. K. Hsieh Award of the British Royal Society and Institution
of Civil Engineers, Great Britain; the Distinguished Engineering Achievement
Award of the Institute for the Advancement of Engineering; and the first Kevin
Nash Gold Medal of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and
Foundation Engineering.
He was selected as Faculty Research Lecturer at the University of
California in 1986, the highest honor that the faculty can bestow on one of its
own. Other distinguished lectureships awarded to Professor Seed include the
Horace A. McCrary Lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the
Karl

Terzaghi Lecture of the American Society of Civil Engineers; the Henry M.

Shaw Lecture at North Carolina State University; Terzaghi Memorial Lecturer
at Bogazici University, Turkey; the Rankine Lecture of the Institution of Civil
Engineers, Great Britain; Northern Testing Services Distinguished Lecturer;
Martin S. Kapp Memorial Lecturer of the ASCE; James H. Haley Memorial
Lecturer, Boston Society of Civil Engineers; Distinguished Civil Engineering
Lecturer, University of Nevada; Charles Schwab Memorial Lecturer, American
Iron and Steel Institute; and the Nabor Carrillo Lecturer, Mexican Society for
Soil Mechanics.
Dr. Seed was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in
1970, to honorary membership in the American Society of Civil Engineers in
1985, to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1986, and to honorary
membership in the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute in 1988. In 1987
he was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Reagan, and in
1988 he was awarded the first honorary doctorate presented by the Ecole
Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees in Paris.
Dr. Harry Bolton Seed was truly a giant of his generation, and all of us are
the richer for having had him among us. For those who knew him well, he will
be most remembered as a generous and compassionate gentleman, with wit,
incisive insights, and wide-ranging interest in the world around him. No
problem was too small to be analyzed and solved; every person was given his
time and consideration. He was truly a teacher in the highest sense of the word.


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Memorial Tributes: Volume 5

HARRY BOLTON SEED 246

Copyright National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

HARRY BOLTON SEED 247

Harry Bolton Seed

Copyright National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

HARRY BOLTON SEED 248

Copyright National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

HARRY BOLTON SEED 249

servant of his profession was unsurpassed. He was the epitome of a model

Copyright National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

HARRY BOLTON SEED 250

Terzaghi Lecture of the American Society of Civil Engineers; the Henry M.

Copyright National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

HARRY BOLTON SEED 251

Copyright National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

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