Dr. Reza Hedayat is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Center for Underground Construction and Tunneling at Colorado School of Mines. Dr. Hedayat received his B.S. degree in Civil Engineering from Shiraz University, M.S. degree in Geotechnical Engineering from Tehran Polytechnic, and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Purdue University. Dr. Hedayat’s research interests are in rock and fracture mechanics, earthquake physics, applied geophysics, and friction and faulting. His research has focused on the mechanical and geophysical characterization of damage in rocks and resulted in the identification of geophysical precursors to shear failure along rock joints. Dr. Hedayat is the recipient of the Cook Ph.D. Dissertation award from the American Rock Mechanics Association (ARMA) in 2014 and the Manuel Rocha Medal Runner-Up Award from the International Society of Rock Mechanics (ISRM) in 2015. Dr. Hedayat is a member of the ARMA Future Leaders Program.