James H. Lambert, the Janet Scott Hamilton and John Downman Hamilton Professor at the University of Virginia, earned the 2024 Distinguished Educator Award from the worldwide Society for Risk Analysis. SRA bestows the honor each year to a teacher, author or mentor who contributed substantially to training new experts in the field.
Lambert, a professor of systems and information engineering and a professor of civil and environmental engineering in UVA’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, is known internationally for analysis and management of risk in complex systems. He has worked on projects ranging from energy infrastructure to Olympics planning.
He received the award for teaching and mentoring advisees and students and sharing his expertise and knowledge in the field. During his nearly 30 years on the UVA Engineering faculty, Lambert has advised dozens of Ph.D. and master’s students, and scores of undergraduates.
“At UVA, we are a team producing engineers, scientists and leaders who make critical technologies safer and better using the tools of systems and civil engineering,” Lambert said. “Seeing students grow during their time here and as they move through their careers is a top reward of being an educator.”
Two Lambert Ph.D. alumni advisees went on to chair their own departments: Ariel Pinto, now at the University at Albany SUNY, and Nilesh Joshi, now at Eastern Kentucky University. Another, Elizabeth B. Connelly, won UVA Engineering’s 2024 Outstanding Young Engineering Graduate Award.
Bringing Students Along
Lambert’s students travel with him to conferences around the globe, where he helps them make valuable industry connections. Closer to home, students are engaged in projects with the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Logistics Systems, where Lambert is active on the Technical Advisory Council. Together they help address operations and logistics challenges at the Port of Virginia, one of the first fully automated container ports of the western hemisphere.
Students also work with Lambert on sponsored research projects, providing them with valuable research experience and mentoring opportunities. He has led more than 60 such projects, totaling more than $25 million in funding, with research partners ranging from industry to federal and state agencies, including branches of the U.S. military.
Rayshaun Wheeler said Lambert was pivotal in his decision to pursue a master’s and then Ph.D. in civil engineering at UVA, two years after graduating from Virginia State University.
“He saw my potential and provided me with an opportunity that has profoundly shaped my academic and professional trajectory,” said Wheeler, who plans to graduate in May.
At UVA, Wheeler completed internships at NASA and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory as a GEM Fellow and presented research at Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers conferences in Perugia, Italy, and Vancouver, Canada.
“Under Dr. Lambert’s mentorship, I have developed a strong technical skill set, contributed to multiple publications, and expanded my expertise in risk analysis, transportation safety and artificial intelligence,” Wheeler said.
An Expert in His Field
Lambert is renowned for his pioneering work in applying scenario-based preferences to risk and resilience analysis, which evaluates how systems are disrupted by emergent and future conditions and integrates those insights into science-based policies and decision-making.
He has applied the process to healthcare, economic development, disaster resilience, coastal protection, maritime container ports, fuel supply chains, wireless broadband for public safety and more.
Lambert also directs both UVA Engineering’s Center for Risk Management of Engineering Systems and the UVA site of the National Science Foundation Center for Hardware and Embedded Systems Security and Trust.
The latter, NSF CHEST, is an industry-university cooperative research center created to prevent counterfeiting and tampering with integrated electronics and industrial controllers.
Lambert is a fellow of the SRA, as well as the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the IEEE and the American Society of Civil Engineers.