Isaac Kreitzer

I was born and raised just outside of Cincinnati, Ohio. As a kid, my parents would frequently take me and my siblings to the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History & Science on the weekends. My favorite exhibit was the display of dinosaur fossils and in turn I developed a fascination with earth geology and archeology. This passion was put on the backburner when I entered college where I opted for a degree in civil engineering. I was able to join my childhood passion of geology with my civil engineering degree through the discovery of geotechnical engineering. Geotech is the branch of civil engineering concerned with the engineering behavior of earth materials (such as soil and rocks).  At Ohio State, I participated in two internships at Resource International, a local geotech firm in Columbus, and performed laboratory experiments on silt from the dam failure in Edenville, Michigan to help determine the cause of failure. At UCSD, I am pursuing a PhD in the Structural Engineering Department where I will characterize the thermal-hydro-mechanical properties of bentonite under Dr. John McCartney. In my free time I enjoy travelling (and travel planning), hiking, playing video games, and brewery hopping.