James Kaklamanos

Welcome

Welcome to the website of Dr. James Kaklamanos, Professor of Civil Engineering at Merrimack College. Jim Kaklamanos joined the faculty of the Department of Civil Engineering at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass., in fall 2012. He obtained his degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Tufts University (BSCE 2008, M.S. 2010, Ph.D. 2012). He specializes in geotechnical engineering, and his research focuses in the area of geotechnical earthquake engineering, specifically on the improvement of models for predicting earthquake-induced ground motions. Jim’s published work has included research on site response analyses, ground-motion models, probabilistic seismic hazard analyses, and engineering education. He has had multiple research projects funded through the U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards program.

At Merrimack College, Jim has taught courses in geotechnical engineering, foundation engineering, earth retaining structures, earthquake engineering, engineering mechanics, capstone design, and engineering probability and statistics. He serves as the chief faculty advisor to Merrimack’s newly established chapter of Tau Beta Pi, the Engineering Honor Society. At the local and national levels, he has been involved in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), United States Universities Council on Geotechnical Education and Research (USUCGER), Seismological Society of America (SSA), Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI), and American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE).  He is currently the Secretary of USUCGER and a member of its Board of Directors, and is a member of a U.S. Geological Survey working group tasked with improving the National Seismic Hazard Model in the Central and Eastern United States. From 2019 through 2022, he was a member of the Ground Motion Characterization Technical Integration Team for the Senior Seismic Hazard Analysis Committee (SSHAC) Level 3 probabilistic seismic hazard analysis at Idaho National Laboratory. In addition, Jim served as the lead guest editor of a special section on advances in site response estimation in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America in 2021.

Jim was named as one of the 2017 Top Ten New Faces of Civil Engineering by ASCE, was recognized as a 2020 New Face in Geoengineering by the ASCE Geo-Institute, and was named one of New Hampshire’s 40 Under Forty by the New Hampshire Union Leader in 2022.  He received the 2017 ASCE ExCEEd New Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award, 2019 Boston Society of Civil Engineers Section/ASCE College Educator Award, 2022 USUCGER Early Career Educator Award, and 2023 Outstanding Reviewer recognition by the Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering.  For more information on Jim’s research, teaching, and service, please explore the subpages on this site, view Jim’s video profile below, and/or visit his Merrimack webpage.