Robert Kayen

I teach in the Geosystems Program in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering,  University of California Berkeley.   After decades of research collaborations with UC, I recently retired from the United States Geological Survey.  Prior appointments included teaching at UCLA and Kobe National University, Kobe, Japan.

My research interests are in the fields of earthquake geotechnical engineering, Terrestrial Laser Scanning-LIDAR, Structure-From-Motion geomatics, engineering geophysics, marine-geotechnics, and marine methane hydrate stability. I am one of the founders and a long-time steering committee member of the National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance activity (www.geerassociation.org). I am the editor of a multi-volume U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper Series on ‘Earthquake Hazards of the Pacific Northwest Coastal and Marine Regions’.  

Many years ago, I was a serious Yosemite rock climber, ski mountaineer, and runner when cartilage was plentiful and joints were young.