Dr. Ellen M. Rathje is the Janet S. Cockrell Centennial Chair in the Fariborz Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering and a senior research scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin. In Engineering, she specializes in geotechnical earthquake engineering. She earned her Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1997, her M.S. in Civil Engineering from the same institution in 1994, and her B.S. in Civil Engineering from Cornell University in 1993. Rathje began her academic career at UT Austin as an assistant professor in 1998, was promoted to associate professor in 2004, and became a full professor in 2009. She also holds the Warren S. Bellows Centennial Professorship in Civil Engineering. Her research has been funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, State of Texas, and United Nations Development Program. She has supervised the research of over 30 graduate students.

Rathje's research interests encompass geotechnical earthquake engineering and engineering seismology, including seismic site response analysis, seismic stability of earth structures and slopes, earthquake-induced landslides and ground failure, field liquefaction evaluation, soil improvement, and application of remote sensing to earthquake damage assessment. She has published over 100 papers on these topics, with key works such as "Simplified frequency content estimates of earthquake ground motions" (1998, Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering), "Empirical predictive models for earthquake-induced sliding displacements of slopes" (2008, Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering), "Technical manual for Strata" (2009, Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center), "DesignSafe: New cyberinfrastructure for natural hazards engineering" (2017, Natural Hazards Review), and "Nonlinear coupled seismic sliding analysis of earth structures" (2000, Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering). As principal investigator, she led the development of the NSF-funded DesignSafe cyberinfrastructure under the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure program. She is part of the leadership team for the TexNet Seismic Monitoring Program and a founding member and previous co-chair of the Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance Association. Rathje serves on the board of directors of the International Association for Earthquake Engineering and the NSF Advisory Committee for Cyberinfrastructure, and previously on the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute Board of Directors and USGS Scientific Earthquake Studies Advisory Committee. Her consulting involves site response and seismic hazard studies for nuclear facilities, including the Thyspunt Nuclear Site in South Africa, four Taipower plants in Taiwan, and sites at Idaho National Laboratory. Major awards include election to the National Academy of Engineering (2025), ASCE Ralph B. Peck Award (2022), Seismological Society of America William B. Joyner Lecture Award (2018), ASCE Fellowship (2016), ASCE Huber Research Prize (2010), and NSF CAREER Award (2000).

Professional Email: e.rathje@mail.utexas.edu