Douglas Cortes, Ph.D.

Hernandez Hall, Room 248
(575) 646-6012
dcortes@nmsu.edu

Education

  • Ph.D. – 2010, Civil Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA.
  • M.S.C.E. – 2008, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA.
  • B.S.C.E. – 2006, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA.

Professional History

  • 08/11 to Present – Assistant Professor, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM.
  • 01/11 to 07/11 – Senior Staff Engineer, Geosyntec Consultants, Kennesaw, GA.
  • 01/10 to 12/10 – Instructor, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA.

Research Interests

  • Heat induced changes in soils with polymeric admixtures: recycled polymer bonding and dissolution protection coatings.

  • Reclaimed asphalt pavements (granular composites): revised characterization, resource recovery and management.

  • Geotechnical aspects of pavements: unconventional pavement structures with enhanced performance from unbound aggregate layers.

  • Soil-cement mechanistic mixture design: minimizing cement while maximizing performance.

  • Smart Backfills for geothermal borehole heat exchangers.

  • Bioinspired geosensors.

Select Publications

Cortes, D. D., A. I. Martin, T. S. Yun, F. M. Francisca, J. C. Santamarina, and C. Ruppel, 2009. “Thermal Conductivity of Hydrate-Bearing Sediments.” Journal of Geophysical Research, 114, B11103, doi:10.1029/2008JB006235. 

Miranda, L. V., Valdes, J. R., and Cortes, D. D., 2017. “Solar bricks for lunar construction.” Construction and Building Materials, v 139, 15 May 2017, pp 241-246, doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2017.02.029

Williamson, S., and Cortes, D. D., 2014. “Dimensional analysis of soil–cement mixture performance.” Géotechnique Letters, v 4, n January-March, pp 33-38, doi:10.1680/geolett.13.00082 

Nasirian, A., Cortes, D. D., and Dai, S., 2015. “The physical nature of thermal conduction in dry granular media.” Géotechnique Letters, v 5, n January-March, pp 1-5, doi.org/10.1680/geolett.14.00073

Ma, Y., Evans, T.M. & Cortes, D.D. 2D DEM analysis of the interactions between bio-inspired geo-probe and soil during inflation–deflation cycles. Granular Matter 22, 11 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10035-019-0974-7