Dr. Pyke was born and raised in Australia and received his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Sydney. He then worked for the Commonwealth Department of Works in Canberra on various projects before attending graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. At Berkeley he conducted original research for his Ph.D. under the guidance of the late Professor Harry Seed and formed a close relationship with Professor Seed with whom he subsequently worked on a number of consulting assignments. Since 1977 Dr Pyke has worked principally as an individual consultant on special problems in geotechnical, earthquake and water resource engineering.