JAMES K. MITCHELL (1930-2023)

BY RICK MITCHELL, KENICHI SOGA, AND
RUDOLPH BONAPARTE

JAMES KENNETH MITCHELL, professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and university distinguished professor emeritus at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, who pioneered studies of the engineering properties of soils, passed away peacefully at home in Massachusetts on Dec. 17, 2023, at the age of 93.

Jim was born in Manchester, New Hampshire, on April 19, 1930. He received a Bachelor of Science (B.C.E.) degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1951, a Master of Science (S.M.) degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1953, and a Doctor of Science (Sc.D.) from MIT in 1956. While at MIT, Jim met and married Virginia “Bunny” Mitchell, and they remained married for more than 52 years until Bunny’s passing in 2004. Together, they raised a family of five children. In 1955, after MIT, Jim worked for a year as a soil engineer at the U.S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station (now part of the U.S. Army Engineering Research and Development Center) in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and he spent 1956-58 as an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, stationed in the United States and Germany.

In 1958, he joined the Civil Engineering Department at the University of California, Berkeley, as assistant professor and assistant research engineer. Together with his senior Berkeley colleagues Harry Bolton Seed (NAE 1970, NAS 1986) and Carl Monismith (NAE 1980), he was instrumental in developing a world-class teaching and research program in geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering. He was a consummate teacher and researcher, creating the first civil engineering course nationally that applied the sciences of soil mineralogy and chemistry to explain fundamental aspects of the engineering behavior of soil. For his effectiveness as a teacher, he was awarded the UC Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award in 1963. From 1979 to 1984, he served as the Civil Engineering Department chair. In 1989, Jim was named as the inaugural Edward G. Cahill and John R. Cahill Professor of Civil Engineering. He retired from UC Berkeley in 1993, becoming the Cahill Professor of Civil Engineering, Emeritus. Recruited out of retirement by his former Berkeley colleague and close friend J. Michael Duncan (NAE 1985), he joined the faculty at Virginia Tech in 1994 as the Charles E. Via Jr. Professor of Civil Engineering. In 1996, he was appointed a university distinguished professor. He retired from Virginia Tech in 1999 as university distinguished professor, emeritus. While officially retired, Jim continued to be very active in guiding research, co-teaching courses, authoring papers, and contributing in other ways to the profession until near the time of his death. It is hard to determine the exact number of students Jim advised during his career, but as of 2007, he had graduated 75 Ph.D. students and he advised/co-advised several students after that. The last student he co-advised completed their Ph.D. in 2021, and Jim has at least one co-authored paper that is still being reviewed for a conference that will be held in 2024, and his final paper was presented by a co-author at an international conference on earthquake geotechnical engineering in May 2024. Over his career, Jim authored or co-authored more than 500 journal publications, conference papers, reports, keynotes, and invited lectures that he authored or co-authored over the years.

During his career, Jim made significant contributions to the field of soil behavior and soil property evaluation. For his doctoral research at MIT, he performed pioneering studies of the fabric of compacted clay under the guidance of Professor T. William Lambe (NAE 1972). Additionally, he conducted early research at Berkeley on compacted clay, soil stabilization, and time-dependent aspects of soil behavior, which served as a foundation for his later work. Over the first two decades of his academic career, he became perhaps the foremost authority globally on the fundamental behavior of soil, providing a framework for considering soil behavior from micro-scale mineralogic and chemical principles to macro-scale engineering properties. His contributions in this area are reflected in his landmark book, Fundamentals of Soil Behavior, first published in 1976 (Wiley). The third edition, published in 2005, attracted more than 12,000 citations. He was working on the fourth edition with co-authors until his passing. Nearly 50 years after first being published, this book has been and continues to be one of the most important and useful technical resources in the fields of geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering.

As principal investigator for the NASA Apollo Lunar Soil Mechanics Experiment during Apollo Missions 14 to 17 from 1969-72, he was responsible for the design, execution, and evaluation of mission planning, astronaut activities on the surface of the moon, and post-mission analyses that provided a comprehensive understanding of the properties and engineering behavior of lunar soil. This knowledge forms a basis for both improved scientific understanding and future engineering application when lunar exploration and development resumes.

Following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in California, Jim was called upon to lead a study for the mayor of San Francisco on the causes of the extensive earthquake-induced damage to the Marina District of the city and to recommend mitigation measures for property owners and the city to minimize losses in future earthquakes. He then served as the chairman of a blue ribbon review committee to oversee a broader study of several other sections of San Francisco that experienced ground liquefaction during the earthquake. These activities were a catalyst for Jim to make numerous contributions over the next 20 years to the field of geotechnical earthquake engineering.

Throughout his career, Jim served as a consultant on noteworthy engineering projects, many involving the application of ground stabilization, ground improvement, and the rehabilitation and retrofit of existing dams and other infrastructure, especially for seismic safety. One of his highest profile projects was for the new Jebba Hydroelectric Development in Nigeria, which was one of the largest foundation improvement projects ever undertaken. Others involved the seismic strengthening of foundations for several existing U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation dams. In 1998 he was chosen by the Federal Interagency Committee on Dam Safety to prepare a set of videos on special aspects of dam safety as a permanent legacy of his expertise and contributions.

Jim’s many awards and recognitions include election to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE, 1976) and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS, 1998), an honor granted to very few civil engineers. From the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), he received the Middlebrooks Award four times (1962, 1970, 1973, 2001), the Norman Medal twice (1972, 1995), the H. Bolton Seed Medal (2004), and the OPAL Lifetime Achievement Award in Education (2006). He was named a Distinguished Member of ASCE (1993). That same year, he received the Berkeley Citation, given by the university to those “whose contributions to UC Berkeley go beyond the call of duty and whose achievements exceed the standards of excellence in their fields.” Among his notable lectures were the ASCE Terzaghi Lecture in 1984 and the British Geotechnical Society Rankine Lecture in 1991.

Throughout his career, Jim worked tirelessly for the profession. He served in various capacities on more than 75 professional committees and panels for the NAE, NAS, NASA, National Science Foundation, National Research Council, ASCE, American Society for Testing and Materials, Canadian Geotechnical Society, Clay Minerals Society, International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, and the Transportation Research Board. Jim was also an active consultant and used his consulting projects to enrich his classroom teaching and inform new areas for research. His consulting projects included soft ground stabilization for waterfront structures, seepage and seismic safety analyses for embankment dams, seismic design of reinforced earth walls, ground improvement for liquefaction risk mitigation, and others. Further details of Jim’s professional accomplishments are available from mitchell.geoengineer.org.

Jim was an exceptional friend and mentor to many of his colleagues and students and is remembered by his extended family as an equally exceptional father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and husband. Despite his numerous accomplishments, he remained humble and always willing to learn something new. He was a role model to his students and always generous with his time. Jim was always willing to help his students, often extending this help throughout their careers. He loved the outdoors and music and was an accomplished saxophone player — an avocation that he enjoyed throughout his life.

Jim is survived by his wife of 16 years, Holly Taylor, and five children (Rick, Laura, James, Don, and David) and their families. Jim and his late wife Virginia “Bunny” Mitchell raised their family in Moraga, California, while Jim was a professor at UC Berkeley. He is also survived by nine grandchildren, five of whom are married, and nine great-grandchildren, as well as being a wonderful later-life father and grandpa to Holly’s two daughters and grandson.