Dr. John Ochsendorf

Assistant Professor of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

John Ochsendorf is Assistant Professor of Building Technology at MIT. He grew up in Elkins, West Virginia and graduated from Elkins High School. He earned an undergraduate degree in structural engineering at Cornell with a minor in archaeology, doing an undergraduate thesis on the engineering analysis of ancient Inca suspension bridges in Peru. After receiving a Master's degree in civil engineering at Princeton, he earned a PhD at the University of Cambridge in England on a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. Following a year in Spain as a Fulbright Scholar, he joined the MIT faculty in 2002. His research interests focus on the technical analysis of ancient monuments, such as the seismic safety of Gothic cathedrals. This is his first visit to the National Youth Science Camp and he looks forward to meeting everyone.