Distinguished Engineer Citations

Marc Levitan 

 

Distinguished Engineer

2025

Degree

B.S. Archicture - Texas Tech University 1985

B.S. Civil Engineering - Texas Tech University 1985

M.S. Civil Engineering - Texas Tech University 1988

Ph.D. Civil Engineering - Texas Tech University 1993

Citation

Marc L. Levitan, Ph.D., conducts research on hurricanes and tornadoes, their impacts, and mitigation, for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in support of the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program (NWIRP).  Marc served as the first Director of NWIRP and is currently its Lead Research Engineer.  

                Marc led NIST’s National Construction Safety Team technical investigation of the 2011 EF-5 tornado that devastated Joplin, Missouri. He headed implementation of recommendations from that investigation, resulting in many changes to building codes, standards, and guidelines that are bringing about a paradigm shift in how tornadoes are considered in the design of conventional buildings.   He was the primary author of the new tornado Load requirements in the ASCE 7-22 standard and the 2024 International Building Code. 

                Prior to joining NIST, Marc was the Charles P. Seiss Jr. Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Louisiana State University (LSU).  He founded the LSU Hurricane Center and served as its director. Under his leadership, the Center became one of the premiere interdisciplinary research units at LSU, addressing hurricanes and other natural hazards and their impacts on the natural, built, and human environments. He also co-founded the LSU Wind Tunnel Laboratory and directed many projects using that facility.  Marc was an investigator on more than 40 funded research projects totaling $7.6M at LSU.  

                During his time at Texas Tech, Marc spent five years as the Managing Director of the Wind Engineering Research Field Laboratory (WERFL) studying wind effects on full scale buildings.  Under the guidance of his mentor Professor Kishor Mehta, Marc led a team of graduate and undergraduate students that constructed and instrumented the lab.  He designed and built the original data acquisition, analysis, validation, and storage systems, and managed many of the research projects conducted at WERFL during its early years.  Published wind load data from this facility has become a key benchmark used by many wind tunnel laboratories around the world.

                Marc’s work on wind loads for industrial and petrochemical structures has also had significant impact.  Wind load design practices today are largely based on his research, including wind tunnel testing and analysis of the aerodynamics of unique structures found in the process industries, such as open frame and partially clad structures, pipe racks, and vessels.  He served on and chaired the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Task Committee that develops guidelines for wind loads on industrial structures, which has become a defacto standard in the petrochemical industry.

                Hurricane sheltering is another area in which Marc has made significant contributions.  He has conducted research in performance, assessment and design of storm shelters and applied this knowledge to pre-disaster evaluation of numerous facilities for federal, state, local and nongovernmental agencies. Building on groundbreaking work in tornado sheltering by another of his TTU professors and mentors, the late Dr. Ernst Kiesling, Marc chairs the International Code Council committee that developed and maintains the first national consensus standard for the design and construction of storm shelters. 

Marc has also provided national leadership in wind hazard mitigation through service as President of the American Association for Wind Engineering and Vice President of the Applied Technology Council.  He has testified multiple times on Capitol Hill and in state legislatures. He has authored more than 100 technical publications, including a book.

                His academic pursuits have been in the fields of structural engineering and engineering for natural hazards. Marc led the creation of a popular Structural Engineering undergraduate minor at LSU and managed that program for many years. He was the faculty advisor for the LSU ASCE Student Chapter and the ASCE Student Steel Bridge Team for many years. With respect to graduate education, he served as major professor for 25 master’s and PhD students, and mentor for a half dozen TTU Wind Science and Engineering PhD interns.

                Marc’s contributions to the engineering profession have been recognized on numerous occasions, including a 2024 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal, two Department of Commerce Gold Medals, the National Storm Shelter Association’s Kiesling Award, and multiple teaching awards from Texas Tech, LSU, and Chi Epsilon.