Geotechnical Hall of Fame Contemporary Trailblazer

Harry George Poulos (born 27 April 1940) is an Australian of Greek descent[3][4] civil engineer specializing in geotechnical engineering and soil mechanics, internationally known as an expert on soil behaviour and pile foundations.

Short biographical details
Poulos graduated from the University of Sydney, where he took a bachelor’s degree, BSc in 1961 and his doctorate, PhD in 1965. His PhD research was supervised by Professor Edward H. Davis and was titled “The analysis of settlement of foundations on clay soils under three-dimensional conditions”.During 1964–65, he was an engineer at MacDonald Wagner and Priddle. From 1965 he was Lecturer, Senior Lecturer in 1969, Reader in 1972 and from 1982, Professor at the University of Sydney, where he is now Professor Emeritus. In 1976 he was awarded a higher doctorate degree DSc from the University of Sydney.
International recognition
In 1989 he delivered the 29th Rankine Lecture entitled “Pile behavior: theory and application”,and in 2005, the Terzaghi Lecture, entitled Pile behavior: Consequences of geology and construction imperfections. Poulos was awarded in 1972, the J. James R. Croes Medal of ASCE, in 1995 the ASCE State of the Art of Civil Engineering Award, is an honorary member of ASCE since 2010, was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal in 2003, the Warren Medal and the Warren Price (1985) of the Australian Institute of Civil Engineers and the 2007 Thomas A. Middlebrooks Award from the ASCE. He became a member of the Order of Australia and in 1988 he received the John Jaeger Memorial Award. Since 1993 he is a member of the Australian Academy of Science (1988) and the Australian Academy of Technical Sciences and Engineering (1996). In 2003 he became the Australian civil engineer of the year.

Poulos served in the Australian Standards Committee for pile foundations (2010), was from 1980 to 1995 part of the Council of the Australian Geomechanics Society (AGS), was from 1982 to 1984 its president, and the Council of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) the vice president for the Asia-Australia region he was in 1989 to 1994. Since 2002 at the Sydney section of the AGS Poulos Lecture[8] in his honor.