Levy earned the engineering school's most prestigious alumni award for his “pioneering work in designing and developing unprecedented structures of beauty and utility around the world” and his direction of “one of the world’s leading structural engineering and applied mechanics firms.”

New York, NY – Matthys Levy, chairman emeritus of Weidlinger Associates, was awarded the Thomas Egleston Medal for Distinguished Engineering Achievement, the highest honor given by the Columbia Engineering School Alumni Association. The medal was presented during the association’s annual awards dinner held at the university’s Low Memorial Library on November 11, 2008. Levy, who received his master’s and CE degrees from Columbia’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science in 1956 and 1962, respectively, was cited for his “pioneering work in designing and developing unprecedented structures of beauty and utility around the world.”

In accepting the award, Levy challenged the engineering community, and Columbia University alumni in particular, to join him in his concern about the “looming water problem.” Levy’s most recent book, Why the Wind Blows (2007), is an entertaining account of the science of weather and climate change that urges action on global warming. Levy began his remarks by recalling 1956, “when we were bathed in the afterglow of the victory over fascism…and global warming had not yet revealed itself from under the greenhouse blanket.” He contrasted that more innocent time to 2008: “Today, over a billion people, one sixth of the world’s population, lack access to fresh water and almost three billion lack adequate sanitation facilities. To sustain us, we all need about 30 liters per day. Where will we get it?”

Levy received the Egleston Medal for more than a half century of accomplishments, specifically the design of domes, buildings, and bridges, and his responsibility “for many breathtaking feats of engineering…that added immensely to the built environment.” The citation singles out his direction of “one of the world’s leading structural engineering and applied mechanics firms,” membership in the National Academy of Engineering, two roof-design patents, more than 50 technical papers, and seven books, two of which were co-authored with his teacher and mentor, Columbia’s legendary Mario Salvadori. Projects mentioned by name include: the Georgia Dome Stadium in Atlanta; the Javits Convention Center and the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City; La Plata Stadium in Argentina; the Schalke Stadium Retractable Dome in Gelsenkirchen, Germany; the Bank of China Headquarters in Beijing; as well as the investigation of the World Trade Center tower collapses, which provided “ key information to insure safer buildings in the future.”

The Egleston Medal has been awarded since 1939 for “notable application of engineering principles, the development of processes or techniques, or the furtherance of a specific branch of the profession.” It is named for Thomas Egleston, founder in 1939 of the Columbia School of Mines, a predecessor school. Levy is the second Weidlinger founding principal to receive the prestigious award. In 1983, Dr. Melvin Baron was recognized for his work as an authority in the field of ground and underwater shock. A recipient must “significantly advanced his or her branch of the profession or the practice or management of engineering activities in general.” Recent awardees have pioneered in the fields of systems analysis and fuzzy logic; bioengineering of unstable respiratory disorders; modern control theory; probabilistic mechanics, structural reliability, and risk assessment; launch vehicles and satellite systems; and liquid-cooled engines.