DFI Announces Winner of Student Paper Competition

Hawthorne, N.J.: John Huntoon, Ph.D., EIT, a recent graduate of the geosystems engineering program at the Georgia Institute of Technology and current president of BioBilt Infrastructure Systems, is the winner of the DFI Educational Trust Student Paper Competition. His paper is titled, “Analytical Model of In-Situ Root-Inspired Ground Anchor Actuation and Pullout.”

His research at Georgia Tech brought Huntoon through the National Science Foundation’s Center for Bio-mediated and Bio-inspired Geotechnics where he worked with Georgia Tech professor David Frost, Ph.D., to incorporate the anchoring efficiency of plant roots into a full-scale geotechnical ground anchor through the process of bio-inspired design. This collaboration developed a new anchoring technology called root-inspired ground anchors, which Huntoon now works to commercialize through his company, BioBilt Infrastructure Systems. Prior to his work in academia, he held a variety of positions in civil and geotechnical engineering for government agencies, private consultants and specialty contractors, and is a proud graduate of Oregon State University.

Huntoon is presenting his paper at DFI’s 49th Annual Conference on Deep Foundations being held in Aurora, Colorado, October 7−10.