Jim Scarazzo spends his days digging up dirt — not as a reporter for a tabloid, but as a forensic engineer for FTI/SEA Consulting Co., which provides engineering investigations.

When buildings leak, lean, crack or crumble, somebody needs to figure out what went wrong and why. Scarazzo’s expertise: to scientifically establish the probable chain of events related to foundation failures.

Wearing a hardhat and toting a tool kit, clipboard and camera, Scarazzo arrives on the scene to methodically solve the subterranean puzzle. He measures, sketches, photographs, tags. “Anything collected on site could become evidence in the legal arena, so we tag pieces of debris — even soil itself,” Scarazzo said.

A senior geotechnical engineer, Scarazzo’s work is “forensic engineering” because it marries engineering science with the legal system. At least two dozen times, Scarazzo has wound up testifying in court or giving depositions. He’s analyzed a Florida sports dome that sunk three inches; a Dallas condo development that was riddled with cracked walls and misaligned doors; and a Baltimore basement wall that collapsed after a storm sent runoff from a neighboring construction site.

Scarazzo said UD trained him to succeed at such work — and with a positive attitude. “All my professors, my whole experience, allowed me to develop the ability to think and to reason things through,” he said. “I know, somewhere along the line, there’s going to be a solution.”