EERI’s Oral History Program has published the third volume in the new Interviews by Stanley Scott series, focusing on Donald E. Hudson (1916-1999).
Interviews by Stanley Scott: An EERI Oral History Collection preserves and shares the valuable unfinished work of Stanley Scott (1921-2002), a research political scientist at the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Beginning in 1984, Scott conducted tape-recorded interviews with pioneers in the field of earthquake engineering, eventually gathering hundreds of hours of audio and thousands of pages of transcripts. Scott completed nine volumes in Connections: The EERI Oral History Series, and the EERI Oral History committee completed another eight volumes posthumously using Scott’s draft manuscripts, notes, and interview transcripts. This new series makes available interviews that Scott was unable to finalize and publish during his lifetime.
Donald E. Hudson grew up in Pasadena, California. He earned his BS, MS, and PhD in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). In 1943, Hudson joined the faculty of Caltech’s Division of Engineering and Applied Science, where he performed pioneering research in ground motion measurement and analysis and the response of structures to earthquake excitation. Hudson served as the chair of the Department of Civil Engineering at University of Southern California from 1981-1984, before returning to Caltech as Professor Emeritus. He was a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and served as president of the International Association for Earthquake Engineering (IAEE).
Stanley Scott interviewed Hudson in April and October of 1989, and they worked together to develop the manuscript, with the final correspondence between the two occurring in June 1992. The manuscript was further edited and arranged by Thalia Anagnos, with support from Robert Reitherman, Tony Shakal, and Roger Borcherdt. The oral history covers Hudson’s teaching and research interests at Caltech, with a focus on the development of strong motion instruments and vibration generators and the processing and use of strong motion data, and his involvement in projects like the Los Angeles Strong Motion Program. It also discusses Hudson’s engagement with practitioners through EERI and IAEE, the development of the World Conferences on Earthquake Engineering, his international public service work with organizations such as UNESCO, and his role in the creation of the earthquake engineering program at University of Roorkee in India.
Download the PDF of Donald E. Hudson from the EERI Digital Library here.
