The UC Berkeley Center for Smart Infrastructure (CSI) hosted a visit by the American Water Works Association (AWWA) and EBMUD on April 17, 2025. David LaFrance, CEO of AWWA, interviewed CSI director Kenichi Soga about the role of research to industry applications. LaFrance also interviewed David Katzev, EBMUD Manager of Pipeline Construction, and Shelly Dean, EBMUD Associate Civil Engineer, about how industry applications of new technologies ultimately benefit the public. They viewed CSI’s large-scale testing facility that includes a full-scale soil pipeline fault-rupture, i.e., split-basin interaction testing apparatus, four-point bending test apparatus, bi-axial testing apparatus, and compression-tension testing apparatus.
The interviews will be shared at the AWWA Annual Conference and Exposition, one of the
largest gatherings of water community professionals in the world. It will be held in Denver,
Colorado, on June 8-11, 2025.
Figure 1. CSI + EBMUD + AWWA Team (David Katzev, Shelly Dean, Clifford Chan, David LaFrance, Kenichi Soga)
Figure 2. CSI + AWWA+ EBMUD Leadership
Figure 3. Interview with Professor Kenichi Soga
Media Contacts:
Professor Kenichi Soga, soga@berkeley.edu
Grace Kang, g.kang@berkeley.edu