Dr. J. David Frost is the Higginbotham Professor in Civil Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Regents’ Entrepreneur. He obtained BA and BAI degrees in Mathematics and Engineering from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland and MS and PHD degrees in Civil Engineering from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA. Throughout his research and teaching career, he has studied natural and man-made disasters and their impacts on infrastructure at multiple scales using digital data collection systems.
Involvement in international activities has been a cornerstone of Frost’s career for more than 30 years. His past and ongoing activities have included roles in committees of the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) including TC-302 Forensic Geotechnical Engineering, TC-105 Geo-mechanics from Micro to Macro, and as an advisor to the Ad-hoc group to establish a new ISSMGE Board Level committee called “Geo-engineers Without Borders”. When coupled with his extensive international activities as a founding member and current Chair of the US NSF funded Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance (GEER) Association that coordinates geotechnical responses to natural and man-made disaster worldwide, he has seen what nature can do at its angriest to our infrastructure and planet. He has personally participated on and/or led teams responding to disasters in US, Chile, China, Turkey, Japan and India amongst others.
Frost maintains a very active research program with significant external funding from federal and state agencies as well as industry donations. He has had continuous NSF funding since 1990 dating back to his first proposal submitted to the agency. Apart from individual investigator projects, he served as co-PI and GT lead for the NSF Engineering Research Center on Bio-mediated and Bio-inspired Geotechnics. The total center funding was $35M and involved four universities. Other sources of funding for his research activities include NIST, USGS and GDOT. Frost has graduated 48 PhD’s and is currently advising 11 PhD’s. This well-funded research program has enabled Frost to actively pursue his entrepreneurial interests.
| Ph.D., Civil Engineering | Purdue University, Indiana, USA | 1989 |
| M.S.C.E., Civil Engineering | Purdue University, Indiana, USA | 1986 |
| B.A.I. (Hons), Civil Engineering | Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland | 1980 |
| B.A., Mathematics | Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland | 1980 |
| Diploma, Technical French | Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland | 1980 |
Frost appreciates the importance of cultural differences in addition to engineering practice in foreign countries and this has led to the development of a course he teaches at Georgia Tech on International Disaster Reconnaissance. This course, which includes a 10-day field trip to areas that have been impacted by extreme events, provides students with first-hand experience of the incredible forces that nature can bring on human infrastructure, learn about post-disaster reconnaissance methods and observe reconstruction activities. Through this course, he has taken students to Japan, China, India, Nepal and S. Korea. Beyond his international teaching activities, Frost also has numerous ongoing international research collaborations in Canada, Chile, Brazil, France, Italy, Switzerland, Japan, China, India, Nepal, United Kingdom, and Ireland. The richness of ideas that emerges from such collaborations reinforces the merits of international engagement. Having worked internationally in both industry and academia, as well as more recently being involved in several geotechnical start-up companies, Frost has a strong appreciation of the opportunities that exist at the intersection between research, practice and entrepreneurship.
In the International Disaster Reconnaissance course, students now use a platform built by alumnus Max Mahdi Roozbahani to capture immersive 360° media, photos, and video that transform real disaster sites in India and Nepal into living digital classrooms.
Three faculty members received the University System of Georgia’s highest recognition for academic, research, and innovation excellence at the August meeting of the Board of Regents. Rafael Bras was named a Regents’ Professor, M. Talat Odman a Regents’ Researcher, and J. David Frost a Regents’ Entrepreneur.
Professors David Frost and Paul Mayne have been selected to deliver prestigious lectures at the Geo-Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2023 Geo-Congress, a gathering of the nation’s leading geotechnical engineering experts.
