John W. Murphy

John W. Murphy, P.E

PhD Candidate
Email: john ‘dot’ murphy ‘at’ berkeley ‘dot’ edu

John graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Platteville in 2006 with a B.S. in Civil Engineering. He worked for eight years for the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) – Saint Paul District in the Geotechnical Engineering Branch. His work at the Saint Paul District focused on Dam and Levee Safety. He graduated an M.S. in Geoengineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2013 during a leave of absence from the USACE. In 2015, John transferred to the US Army Engineering Research and Development Center (ERDC) Geotechnical Structures Laboratory (GSL) in Vicksburg, Mississippi. In the five years as a Research Civil Engineer for the ERDC-GSL, he has researched Internal Erosion beneath Dams and Levees, Measuring Surface Erosion Rates, Effectiveness of the Fully Grouted Method for Piezometer Installation, and Rapid Pile Repairs technologies. In 2016, John received a Graduate Certificate in Risk Management from the Notre Dame of Maryland University. John is a registered Professional Engineer in Minnesota.

John is currently a fifth year PhD Candidate at the University of California, Berkeley. He was selected as a member of the ERDC Long Term Training Program for the 2017-2018 Academic Year.

Research interests:

  • Material Point Method (MPM)
  • Soil Erosion
  • Soil Behavior and Constitutive Modeling
  • Risk Assessment of Dams and Levees
  • Dam and Levee Instrumentation and Monitoring

Simulation of internal erosion using two-phase two-point Material Point Method