Evert Hoek

Evert Hoek FREng[1] (born in 1933 in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe) is a Zimbabwean-Canadian Mechanical Engineer specialized Geotechnical Engineering and a leading international expert in rock mechanics.

Hoek began his research for Rock Mechanics in 1958 (due to problems with brittle rock in deep gold mines in South Africa) and in 1965 at the University of Cape Town PhD (rock fracture under static stress conditions). From 1965 he was at Imperial College, where he set up at the Royal School of Mines one faculty-wide center for rock mechanics. He developed there, among others In 1968, a triaxial test for Rock Mechanics. Later he became a professor at the University of Toronto in 1975 for twelve years as a senior consulting engineer at Golder Associates (where he was Senior Principal and Chairman) in Vancouver, then an independent consulting engineer with a private engineering firm in Vancouver. Hoek is a Fellow[2] of the National Academy of Engineering, the Royal Academy of Engineering[3] and the Canadian Academy of Engineering. He received a doctorate degree (D. Sc.) from the University of London and honorary doctorates in the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo. He received the first prize of the Mueller International Society of Rock Mechanics and was the 1983 Rankine Lecturer ( Strength of jointed rock masses ) and 2000 Terzaghi Lecturer ( Big tunnels in bad rock ). Dr. Hoek has published more than 100 papers and 3 books. His classic Rock Slope Engineering has been updated by Duncan Wyllie to a 5th edition[4], published by CRC Press in 2017.