Dr. Ellen M. Rathje is the Janet S. Cockrell Centennial Chair in Engineering in the Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin (UT), and a Senior Research Scientist at the UT Bureau of Economic Geology. She has expertise in the areas of seismic site response analysis, seismic slope stability, liquefaction, field reconnaissance after earthquakes, and remote sensing.

Dr. Rathje is a founding member and previous Co-Chair of the Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance (GEER) Association, and currently the Principal Investigator for the DesignSafe-ci.org cyberinfrastructure for the NSF-funded Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI).