SSRC Honors 2025 Award Winners

SSRC takes great pride in the contributions that our members make to the field of Structural Stability. Each year we grant a number of awards to the outstanding individuals who have made a demonstrable impact on our organization and others. Whether they are veterans of the industry or just starting their career, we applaud their talent and commitment to research.

Beedle Award 2025 Winner - Todd Helwig

Todd Helwig, Ph.D., P.E. (512-924-5903; thelwig@mail.utexas.edu) has had a 30-year career teaching and conducting research in the field of structural engineering. He holds the Jewel McAlister Smith Professorship in Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. His primary area of interest is the design and behavior of steel structures with an emphasis in full-scale testing, field monitoring, structural stability, fatigue, and stability bracing requirements.

He is a member of several technical committees within the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC), the AASHTO/National Steel Bridge Alliance Collaboration (NSBA), the Design Advisory Group and Steel Bridge Task Force for AASHTO, and the Structural Stability Research Council (SSRC). He is a member of the AISC Committee on Specifications. He served on the Executive Committee for SSRC from 2002-2019 and served as Chair from 2016-2019.

He has developed and taught numerous shortcourses on the design and behavior of steel buildings and bridges on behalf of AISC, SSRC, and the National Highway Institute. More than 5000 engineers have attended his shortcourses in person with thousands more attending webinars.

His research has been recognized with several awards including the 2023 George Richardson Medal presented at the International Bridge Conference, 2022 Richard S. Fountain Award given by AASHTO/ AISI/NSBA, the 2022 AISC Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2017 AISC T. R. Higgins Lectureship Award, the AISC Special Achievement Award, the ASCE Collingwood Research Prize, the ASCE Moisseiff Award, and the ASCE Shortridge Hardesty Award.

2025 Beedle Award Winner - Todd Helwig

MAJR Award 2024 Winner - Lakshmi Priya Subramanian

Lakshmi Subramanian is an Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. She did her doctoral and post-doctoral work at Georgia Institute of Technology, before which she worked with Walter P. Moore and Associates in Houston, Texas. She is a licensed professional engineer in the state of Texas. Her research primarily focuses on the stability of steel structures, structural fire engineering, and metal additive manufacturing through experimental and numerical investigations. She is passionate about teaching structural stability and has conducted several courses on steel design and structural fire engineering in India. She is a member of SSRC, AISC, the structural safety sectional committee in the Bureau of Indian Standards, a life member of the Indian Institute of Bridge Engineers, and the Institute for Steel Development and Growth in India.

2024 MAJR Winner - Lakshmi Subramanian

Vinnakota Award 2025 Winner - Eman M.A. Abdullah

Eman Abdullah is a PhD student in Structural Engineering at North Carolina State University (NCSU). She received the Fulbright scholarship to complete her Master of Science at NCSU. Eman holds a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Assiut University. She has gained valuable experience working in both Egypt and the US, focusing her research on enhancing the safety, efficiency, and resilience of building designs. She received this award for her work on the paper “Analytical Investigation of Plate Buckling Capacity Under Inelastic Cyclic Loading”, published as part of the 2025 SSRC Conference Proceedings.

Yoon Duk Kim Young Researcher Award 2025 Winner - Edward Sippel

Edward Sippel, Ph.D., P.E. is an Assistant Professor at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. His research interests include the stability of steel structures considering open-web steel joists, unsymmetric cross secons, and stainless steel. He is invested in educang the future professional engineers, working with students from stacs through steel design and other higher level analysis coursework. His industry experience contributes to the content of courses by providing examples where new concepts could apply.

He is a member of Structural Stability Research Council, American Instute of Steel Construction, and American Society of Civil Engineers, which includes him serving as a faculty advisor to the steel bridge team at MSOE.

SSRC is also thrilled to welcome both Todd Helwig and Jerry Hajjar as 2025 Distungished Members. Both former Beedle Award winners, this distinguishment honors their lifetime of service to the Structural Stability Research Council, and their significant contributions to the field.