NAE Inducts Arpad Horvath and Seth Pearlman for Outstanding Contributions

CEE alumni Arpad Horvath and Seth Pearlman have been elected into the prestigious National Academy of Engineering (NAE) for their remarkable contributions to the field. Election to the NAE represents one of the highest honors in the engineering profession. 

Arpad Horvath (MS ‘95, PhD ‘97) is recognized for his life-cycle environmental and economic assessment of products and processes. His recent research includes embodied carbon assessment of buildings, pavements, modular construction, adaptive reuse of buildings, uncertainty assessment of building materials, and identifying regional fine particulate matter exposure reduction pathways from on-road transportation and electricity generation. In 2023, he launched the California Center for Green Buildings Research, with participation from five UC campuses.

Horvath, the Peirano Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, at UC, Berkeley is the founding editor-in-chief of Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability. Among his numerous awards and distinctions, he received the ASCE Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize and the Chancellor’s Sustainability Award from UC Berkeley. Arpad was also a member of the U.S. EPA Science Advisory Board and a member of its Scientific and Technological Achievement Awards Committee.

Seth Pearlman (BS ‘78, MS ‘79) has been named for his leadership in ground improvement, technologies, geostructural design, and geotechnical construction techniques. 

Pearlman is the North American CEO and board director of Menard. He is responsible for Menard USA, Menard Canada, Earth Tech (Florida), Farrell Design-Build (California), and ConeTec. Pearlman joined Menard in 2003. He has served numerous organizations, serving as the president of the Deep Foundations Institute (DFI) from 2006-2008.

Recognized with numerous honors, he is currently a National Academy of Construction member. Perlman has also been awarded the ASCE Geo-Institute Wallace Hayward Baker Award, the ASCE Henry Michel Award for Research in Industry, and alumni service awards from both Carnegie Mellon University and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He currently serves on the DFI Scholarship Trust Board, where he helps establish funding for university scholarships.