Leon Moisseiff

[3] He started his education there and studied at the Baltic Polytechnic Institute for three years; he emigrated to the United States with his family at the age of 19, in 1891, because of political activities.

[1] In his early 20s, under the pseudonym "M. Leontieff", Moisseiff started a monthly Yiddish-language cultural and literary journal, Di Fraye Gezelshaft.

Moisseiff served as a consulting engineer on the bridge, but declined to speak up for his colleague Charles Ellis[5] when he was fired from the project.

However, he lost his strong reputation when this narrow span across the Puget Sound in Washington State collapsed in a windstorm four months after it opened in 1940.

The dramatic film of the bridge's collapse, as a twisting motion added to the stress of longitudinal waves along the span, is still shown to engineering, architecture, and physics students as a good example of torsional flutter gone awry.

[7] In 1947, board members and the American Society of Civil Engineers established the Moissieff Award to be given to an exemplary paper in the field of structural design.

The award, including a bronze medal showing Moisseiff's profile and a cash prize paid out by the fund's trust, have been given out by the ASCE every year since.