Rate My Professor David Frost

J. David Frost is the Elizabeth and Bill Higginbotham Professor in Civil Engineering and a Regents' Entrepreneur at the Georgia Institute of Technology's School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He holds B.A. and B.A.I. (Hons) degrees in mathematics and civil engineering from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland (1980), and M.S.C.E. (1986) and Ph.D. (1989) degrees in civil engineering from Purdue University. Before entering academia, Frost worked in industry in Ireland and Canada on natural resource projects, including tailings impoundments and artificial sand islands in the Arctic for oil exploration. He began his academic career at Purdue University and joined Georgia Tech nearly 20 years ago, serving as head of the Geosystems Engineering Group, founding director of the Georgia Tech Regional Engineering Program, and subsequently the Georgia Tech Savannah campus. Frost is also co-founder and owner of a software company developing digital data collection systems for subsurface information.

Frost's research specializes in geotechnical responses to natural and man-made disasters worldwide, utilizing digital data collection systems to assess infrastructure impacts at multiple scales. His academic interests encompass micro- and nanomechanics of geomaterials, composites, sustainable communities, bio-mediated and bio-inspired geotechnics, and geosynthetics. As founding member and current chair of the NSF-funded Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance (GEER) Association, he has led or participated in disaster response teams in the US, Chile, China, Turkey, Japan, and India. Frost has maintained continuous NSF funding since 1990 and contributes to International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) committees, including TC-302 Forensic Geotechnical Engineering and TC-105 Geomechanics from Micro to Macro. He has delivered distinguished lectures such as the Osterberg Lecture (Northwestern University, 2023), Leonards Lecture (Purdue University, 2016), Prakash Distinguished Lecture (Missouri S&T, 2021), and Burmister Lecture (Columbia University, 2008). Notable publications include “Geotechnical and Geological Reconnaissance Observations of the February 6th, 2023 Turkiye Earthquakes” (Earthquake Spectra, 2024), “Impact of Ground Motion Uncertainty Evolution from Seismic Datasets on Post-earthquake Data on Building Damage” (Earthquake Spectra, 2024), “3-D Printing and Lab Scale Testing of Bio-inspired Geogrids for Road Rutting Reduction” (Bio-geotechnics, 2025), and “Framework for Designing Next-Generation Geogrids” (Geosynthetics International, 2025). Frost's honors include the ASCE H. Bolton Seed Medal (2023), Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize (2001), NSF National Young Investigator Award (1994-1999), ASCE Fellow (2011), and Civil Engineering Alumni Achievement Award from Purdue (2025).