Chuck Farrar

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT CHUCK FARRAR

In 2025 I converted from a Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) R&D Eng. 6 to a guest scientist position. The first ten years of my LANL career focused on performing experimental and analytical structural dynamics studies for a wide variety of systems including nuclear power plant structures subjected to seismic loading, and weapons components subjected to various portions of their stockpile-to-target loading environments. My research has focused on developing integrated hardware and software solutions for structural health monitoring (SHM). This work has been documented in 400+ publications and numerous keynote lectures at conferences and universities. My work has been recognized by election to Fellow in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Society of Civil Engineers and the Society for Experimental Mechanics, a U.K. Royal Academy of Engineers Distinguished Visitor Fellowship and, most recently, the Shimizu Distinguished Researcher appointment in the Civil and Environmental Eng. Dept, Stanford Univ.In I founded the Los Alamos Dynamics Summer School (LADSS), which is an undergraduate research and education program designed to motivate top U.S. citizen engineering students to attend graduate school. Working with faculty at the Univ. of California San Diego, I then developed the LANL/UCSD Engineering Institute and led that Institute until 2024. This collaboration, with its research focus on integrating advanced predictive modeling capabilities with novel sensing systems and information technology, has also helped to develop a formal, multi-disciplinary, UCSD degree-granting educational program in the field of NDE/SHM. To support that degree program, since 2006 I\'ve taught a grad/senior-elective course on SHM through an adjunct faculty appointment in the Structural Engineering Dept. As coordinator of LANL’s Engineering Leadership Council (20••••23), I led the development of LANL’s first strategic plan for engineering. I am also one of the co-founders of the Los Alamos Judicial Science School, which is 1-week training program to help judges (district, appellate and state Supreme Court) assess the quality of science, engineering and technology being presented in their courts. Additionally, I’ve taught SHM short courses 45+ times in conjunction with conferences and to industry and government agencies in Asia, Australia, Europe, South America and the U.S.