Saam Shams

Geotechnical Engineer P.E.

Licenses & Certifications

  • Licensed Professional Engineer in:
        Colorado
        Arizona
        Nevada
  • 24 Hour MSHA New Surface Miner Training

Education

MSc in Geophysics

Universidade de São Paulo - Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas
2014 - 2016
Download Thesis

MSc in Geotechnical Engineering

University of California, Berkeley
2012 - 2013

BS in Civil Engineering

University of California, Irvine
2006 - 2010

Languages

  • English (Native)
  • Persian (Conversational)
  • Portuguese (Conversational)
  • Spanish (Intermediate)
  • French (Beginner)

Affiliations

  • United States Society on Dams (USSD)
  • International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD)

Career Profile

I have the experience of a mid-level Geotechnical Engineer, with roughly 4 years of work experience on large infrastructure projects with the Bureau of Reclamation and roughly a year of private consulting work focused on mine tailings dams located in Central and South America. My experiences range from construction field work, field investigations, geotechnical analysis, seismic analysis, & numerical modeling among others. References can be provided upon request.

Experiences

Contract Engineer/Geophysicist

2021 - Present
Self-Employed

I occasionally perform geotechnical & geophysical work on a project to project basis as a contract employee for interested parties.

Geotechnical Engineer Consultant

2020 - 2021
Global Resource Engineering, Denver CO

Analyze risks of tailings dams located primarily in Latin America. Tasks included Dam Safety Inspection reports, SPT/CPT/Lab Testing analysis, Inclinometer & Piezometer analysis, stability modeling, and FMEAs.

Geotechnical Engineer

2018 - 2019
Bureau of Reclamation, Denver CO

A healthy mix of work and research. Work included slope/seepage analysis, dynamic and static modeling, construction field work, comprehensive reviews, geophysical field work, design, and research.

Notable Projects

Coricancha Tailings Dam, Peru - Performed Slope Stability analysis of this tailings dam located in steep and complex terrain.
La Guitarra Tailings Dam, Mexico - Participated in Failure Mode and Effects Analysis of site with liquefaction history.
Topia Tailings Dam, Mexico - Management and reporting of inclinometer/piezometer data to measure movement of tailings.
Cle Elum Dam Fish Passage Way, Washington - Enforced specifications on construction crew for beginning of large project, requiring +100 ft of vert. drilling.
Virginia Tech CGPR 2017 Geophysics Competition - Participated in geophysics competition to detect pre-placed sub-surface objects with team from Bureau of Reclamation.
Oglala Dam, South Dakota - Performed field investigation work.
Hyrum Dam, Utah - Conducted dynamic modeling & analysis with complex clay foundation for a proposed spillway design.
Dynamic Finite Element Modeling Research - Participated in self-proposed research project in collaboration with U.C. Davis professor using sofware package Real-ESSI to identify the influence of Incidence Angle on dynamic modeling of structures to understand contribution of surface wave energy.

Geotechnical & Geophysical
       Software Proficiency

FLAC 2D

LS-DYNA

PLAXIS

CPeT-IT

Inclinalysis

Geostudio

Shake

SurfSeis / ParkSeis

Autocad / Civil 3D

General Software Proficiency

Microsoft Office

Adobe Creative Suite

Python

Matlab

Linux/Mac/Windows Operating Systems

Web Development - HTML/CSS/Javascript