W. F. Chen is presently Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Hawaii. He was a George E. Goodwin Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering and Head of the Department of Structural Engineering at Purdue University from 1976 to 1999. J. Y. Richard Liew is presently associate professor with the Department of Civil Engineering at the National University of Singapore. He received his B.Eng. and M. Eng in Civil Engineering from the National University of Singapore, in 1986 and 1988, respectively, and Ph.D. in Structural Engineering from Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, in 1992.