Opening Session and Keynote Speaker
Preservation Technology: Perils and Possibilities
4:00–5:00 p.m.
Thursday, October 7

Registration Fee: No charge for Conference registrants or guests
Location: Sherman St. Event Center
Transportation: Walk
Dress Code: Business Casual
AIA/Canadian CEs: 1.0
Continuing Education Credits:
     AIA–1 CE
     Engineering–1 PDH
     Canadian Architects–TBD

 John Ochsendorf in his office at MIT

John A. Ochsendorf is a structural engineer who works to preserve historic structures and to reinterpret traditional technologies for contemporary use. He directs a research program in historic masonry structures at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is an Associate Professor of Civil Engineering and Architecture.

He is the author of more than 30 technical papers on the mechanics of traditional masonry, as well as several book chapters, and a monograph titled Guastavino Vaulting: The Art of Structural Tile (Princeton Architectural Press, 2010). He is a partner in the engineering consulting firm Ochsendorf DeJong and Block, LLC, and has consulted on the structural safety of historic monuments around the world, from a Roman theater in France to brick masonry arches in Manhattan.
 
Ochsendorf was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to Spain in 1999 to study masonry vaults in Barcelona and Madrid. His PhD dissertation titled “Collapse of Masonry Structures,” received the Edoardo Benvenuto Prize in 2002 for research between mechanics and architecture. In 2007 he was awarded a Rome Prize in Historic Preservation from the American Academy in Rome, and in 2008 Ochsendorf delivered the Sutherland History Lecture to the Institution of Structural Engineers in London.
 
He was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2008 by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the first structural engineer to be selected for this award. His design work on vaulted masonry buildings has won numerous design awards including the “World Building of the Year” in 2009 for the vaulted Mapungubwe Museum in South Africa. Ochsendorf received a B.Sc. from Cornell University, where he studied structural engineering and archaeology, with graduate coursework in historic preservation.

He earned an M.Sc. in civil engineering from Princeton University, and a PhD in structural engineering from Cambridge University in England. He is a Corresponding Member of the Cathedral Architects Association and is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Architectural Heritage: Conservation, Analysis, and Restoration.