PRETELL RESEARCH GROUP
From left to right: Muhsin, Santosh, Cesar, Renmin, Dominik, and Carlos.
Welcome!
I’m Renmin Pretell, Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR).
Before joining UNR in 2023, I spent over a decade in both industry and academia. I was a postdoctoral scholar with the Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences (GIRS) at the University of California, Los Angeles. I also worked as a consulting engineer with Golder Associates in its offices in Lima (Peru) and Denver (CO), mainly focused on tailings dam projects. I hold a Ph.D. and M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Davis; and a BS in Civil Engineering from the National University of Engineering (UNI) in Peru.
Our research aims to advance the assessment of ground failure and the performance of infrastructure and geotechnical systems, including tailings dams and heap leach pads, by integrating field and experimental data with numerical simulations and analytics. Specific research interests include seismic site response, soil liquefaction, and subsurface soil spatial variability.
My combined experience in industry and academia shaped my goal of bridging the two. We aim to study real-world problems with a fundamental perspective to produce knowledge that is scientifically sound and useful to the industry.
Renmin Pretell, Ph.D. (he/him)
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Nevada, Reno
Mail: 1664 N. Virginia St., Reno, NV 89557-0258
Office: 775-682-5226
E-mail: rpretell at unr dot edu
UNR site: https://www.unr.edu/cee/people/renmin-pretell
Last updated on July 2026.