Five Eustis employees are involved in planning a conference in New Orleans that will examine a topic bearing particular significance to Southern Louisiana.
Karishma Desai, P.E., who has worked at Eustis Engineering since 2012, will serve as a co-chair on the Deep Foundations Institute’s 42nd Annual Deep Foundations and Risk Management Conference Organizing Committee. Gwendolyn Sanders, P.E., who has been a Eustis Engineering employee since 1993, will serve as the conference’s program advisor. Gwen is an executive vice president and engineering manager at Eustis Engineering.
Karishma Desai, P.E.
Bill Gwyn, P.E., Chairman of the Board, and Glen Andersen, P.E., Principal Engineer, will serve as session chairs, which means they will monitor reviews of papers in their session, fill in as reviewers, and assist the program chair selecting papers. Marketing Assistant, Erin Schilling, will serve as Committee Secretary.
The conference will be held at the New Orleans Marriott on 24-27 October, 2017. This conference will be the largest of the year for DFI, an association of contractors, engineers, suppliers, academics and owners in the deep foundations industry representing more than 50 countries and six continents. The last time the conference was held in New Orleans was in 1992.
The conference’s main attraction is the presentation of technical papers focusing on deep foundations and ground improvement, and associated risks and mitigation practices. The papers are bound into a book and published for the conference. Karishma is responsible for selecting topics for the papers, overseeing the abstract and paper review process, coordinating the technical program, organizing the exhibition, and promoting the event.
For Karishma, promotion is the easy part. “This profession is so interesting,” Karishma said. “There are so many unknowns with soil. That’s what makes geotechnical engineering so exciting.”
The conference draws approximately 3,000 people and includes more than 120 exhibits. The conference draws leaders in the deep foundation industry, in addition to those associated with design, construction, QC/QA and risk assessment/management.
An important component of the conference is reaching out to civil engineering students. Often civil engineering students are only offered just one or two classes in geotechnical engineering during undergraduate studies. “It doesn’t give you the exposure to fall in love with geotechnical engineering,” Karishma said, adding that soil complexity makes advanced knowledge essential.
Karishma has been involved with the organization since 2006 and has served on the Ground Improvement Committee since 2008. In April 2014, the committee prepared a guide for installing wick drains, which speed up consolidation in soft soils. The document is available on the DFI website. In March 2015, the committee published “Commentary on Selection, Design and Specifications of Ground Improvement for Mitigation of Earthquake-Induced Liquefaction,” which was presented in the August 2013 DFI Journal, Volume 7, Issue 1. Currently, the committee is working on NAVFAC Aggregate Pier Specifications Guidance and several other items.