idwilliams

Let me take you back to my fifth grade science fair, an opportunity for most kids to build a volcano or power a lightbulb with a potato. Not the case for Ian Williams. No, instead I decided that it would be fun mix concrete with various recycled plastics to test alternative forms of reinforcement. (FYI, the plastic mesh bags that oranges come in work pretty well.) Fifteen years after that fateful science project and my excitement for concrete research has only increased. So much so that I decided to pursue a PhD in structural engineering, and when I discovered what was being done with fiber reinforced concrete at UC Berkeley I knew I had found the right research topic. My current areas of research are in fracture, computational modeling, and environmental effects of fiber reinforced concrete. When I'm not in the lab you'll most likely find me bouldering in Tahoe or Yosemite, or out on my bike searching for some hole-in-the-wall restaurant.

May 2015