Charles R. Farrar, PhD, PE

Charles Farrar completed his baccalaureate degree in civil engineering at Michigan Tech in 1979. From there he went on to complete his master’s and PhD in civil engineering- from the University of New Mexico in 1982 and 1988, respectively. Dr. Farrar began his 34-year career in 1983 with Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and is currently the Engineering Institute Leader. His first years with LANL 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. Later his research became focused on developing integrated hardware and software solutions to structural health monitoring problems. In 2000 Dr. Farrar founded the Los Alamos Dynamics Summer School (LADSS), which is an undergraduate research education program designed to motivate U.S. citizen engineering students to attend graduate school. The LADSS has been expanded to be a more comprehensive education and research collaboration with the University of California San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering. In 2014 he co-founded 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.

Dr. Farrar has been recognized with many awards for his research contributions including; the 2013 Domnique DeMichele Award from the Society of Experimental Mechanics, elected to the position of Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellow in 2012, and the 2011 Royal Academy of Engineers (UK) Distinguished Visiting Fellowship. He is a Fellow in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Society of Civil Engineers, Society for Experimental Mechanics and a registered Professional Engineer in New Mexico. He has been an invited guest lecturer and key note speaker at over 30 professional conferences. Charles resides in Los Alamos, New Mexico with his wife, Lorraine, and has one adult son.