Professor Michele Maugeri from the University of Catania has passed away unexpectedly after his retirement.
Michele was born in 1944 in his beloved Sicily where he had a brilliant academic career after having graduated as a Civil Engineer at the Politecnico di Torino with an award for the best thesis on the construction of a bridge across the Messina Strait.
He started working at the University of Catania in 1972 raising to the rank of Full Professor of Geotechnical Engineering and becoming internationally renowned in the field of earthquake engineering.
Michele was a member of numerous committees and working groups in Italy as well as abroad, participated in numerous conferences and wrote a series of seminal papers in scientific and engineering journals.
The loss is particularly felt by our Institute as Michele was a frequent keynote speaker at our conferences on Earthquake Resistant Engineering Structures and more recently acted as Co-Chair of one of the meetings held in Tuscany as well as Editor of the book Seismic Prevention of Damage (WIT Press, ISBN 978-1-84564-004-0), which attracted contributions from well-known colleagues. Michele was also a very active member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Safety & Security Engineering with special responsibility for Vulnerability to Seismic Excitations.
Michele was a prolific author and since starting to collaborate with Wessex Institute more than 20 years ago, he was author or co-author of over 40 papers in our WIT Transactions.
He will always be remembered by us for his kindness and gentlemanly behaviour. His death represents a terrible loss to Engineering Sciences as well as a personal loss to his many friends and colleagues from around the world.
Carlos A Brebbia
Wessex Institute
The New Forest, UK
Wessex Institute