ASCE EERI September 2024 Joint Dinner Meeting

MEETING GEOSPATIAL TECHNOLOGY – SAVING THE WORLD’S PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE FROM NATURAL HAZARDS

Wednesday, September 11th, 2024
6pm-9pm
Stone Brewing Liberty Station
2816 Historic Decatur Road, Unit 116
San Diego, CA 92106

ASCE San Diego Section is co-hosting their September Meeting with EERI, featuring guest speaker Dr. Michael Olsen, 2024 EERI Distinguished Lecturer. Please join us at Stone Brewing to hear about the role of geospatial technologies in infrastructure resilience amidst natural hazards.

For members of EERI or ASCE = $40
For non-members = $50
For student members of EERI or ASCE = $30
For student non-members of EERI or ASCE = $40

Click the image to the right to view the event flyer.

REGISTRATION
Click here to register for the dinner.

Abstract

The task of maintaining resilient infrastructure against the onslaught of natural hazards often feels elusive and unattainable. Recent advances in technology offer promising solutions and opportunities towards this goal; however, the effective adoption and utilization of those technologies operates at a much slower pace given the societal realities of budget limitations, workforce shortages, polarization of priorities, disillusionment from past failures, and resistance to change. In day to day operations, efforts by engineers, planners, and decision makers often are stymied due to a lack of accessible, trustworthy, and current information related to infrastructure conditions. These problems are exacerbated in emergency situations where infrastructure systems and people are pushed to extreme limits.

At the project scale, inadequate site investigations result in substantial delays and cost-overruns from unanticipated problems during construction as well as poor infrastructure performance due to ground failure during a seismic event. These challenges propagate to the network scale where entities managing lifelines are often forced to make decisions prioritizing mitigation efforts based on limited, simplistic, or outdated information, which significantly hampers response and recovery efforts during a disastrous situation. This presentation explores examples of how expanded and effective usage of geospatial technologies now can help us proactively “save” the world through detailed mapping of our critical lifeline infrastructure to improve 1) monitoring, modeling, and analysis efforts to more precisely identify vulnerable infrastructure, 2) planning for and understanding the potential impacts and damage extents associated with multiple hazards, 3) the conduct of post-disaster reconnaissance, damage assessments, and rebuilding efforts, and 4) digital preservation of infrastructure and other resources with significant cultural and historical importance that are unlikely to withstand major seismic forces lurking on the horizon. Ultimately, geospatial technology serves as the unifying glue to enable meaningful collaboration between science, engineering, and public policy necessary for a resilient society capable of effectively responding and adapting to natural hazards.

Speaker Information: 6th Kenji Ishihara Colloquium Series on Earthquake Engineering

Punctuated Resilience, Climate Change and Bio-Geotechnics
Speakers and Abstracts

Alejandro Martinez
Associate Professor, University of California, Davis
Snakeskin-inspired piles and soil anchors: from bio-inspiration to field implementation

Abstract: Many aspects of the construction and performance of infrastructure rely on load transfer between soils and structures. Examples include deep foundations, soil anchors, and geosynthetics. This presentation will highlight the application of bioinspiration towards the transfer of load at soil-structure interfaces, with an emphasis on piled foundations and soil anchors. A dilemma in design exists: while large skin friction promotes a large capacity, it can also lead to difficulties during installation (i.e. refusal). To address this, surfaces with textures inspired by the belly scales of snakes were designed to assess the potential for mobilizing direction-dependent friction, and centrifuge and field load tests were performed to assess their effect the shaft capacity of piles and soil anchors. The laboratory, centrifuge, and field results reveal that greater skin friction is mobilized when the surfaces and piles are displaced in the cranial direction (i.e. soil moving against asperities) than when they are displaced in the caudal direction (i.e. soil moving along asperities). This direction-dependence is shown to be due to the greater soil deformation induced when the surfaces are displaced in the cranial direction. Cyclic interface shear tests and centrifuge load tests inform the degradation of skin friction mobilized by the bioinspired surfaces and piles. This presentation will discuss the potential benefits of the snakeskin-inspired surfaces in sites with sandy and clayey soils.

Bio: Alejandro Martinez is an associate professor at the University of California Davis. He obtained his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees from Georgia Tech in 2015 and 2012, respectively, and his B.S. from the University of Texas at Austin in 2010. His research aims to further the understanding of soil behavior and soil-inclusion interactions involved in geotechnical engineering. His research interests include bio-inspired geotechnics, soil-structure interactions, offshore geotechnics, and fabric effects on soil behavior. His research employs a combination of experimental laboratory, centrifuge modeling, and numerical techniques. In 2020, he received the NSF CAREER award and in 2022 he received the ASCE Arthur Casagrande Career Development Award.

Thomas O’Rourke
Thomas R. Briggs Professor of Engineering Emeritus, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Cornell University
Punctuated Resilience

Abstract: The concept of punctuated equilibrium, as advanced by Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge, is applied to infrastructure in this presentation. Professor O’Rourke will discuss how key infrastructure policies have been punctuated by hazards that affect the built environment. Just as the fossil record is composed of flash pictures that imply catastrophic change, so the record of hazards can provide a similar impression. Hazards that occurred once every generation, now occur almost yearly. Professor O’Rourke will explore how frequent hazards, such as hurricanes, affect resilience, and become a mechanism for improving the engineering and management of critical facilities. The agents of change that lead to improved policies and approaches are explored, including new technologies and the engagement of community support.

Bio: Tom O’Rourke is the Thomas R. Briggs Professor of Engineering Emeritus in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, Distinguished Member of ASCE, International Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Member of the Mexican Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He authored or co-authored over 440 technical publications, and has received numerous awards for his research. His interests cover geotechnical engineering, earthquake engineering, underground construction technologies, engineering for large, geographically distributed systems, and geographic information technologies and database management.

J. Carlos Santamarina
Professor & G. Wayne Clough Chair, Georgia Institute of Technology
The Energy-Climate-Livability Challenge: New Roles for the Earthquake Engineering Community

Abstract: Climate change is rapidly emerging as a significant threat to daily life, with profound implications for livability and the infrastructure. Caused by our reliance on fossil fuels, climate change affects water and food security, urban development, migration and consumption patterns, and policy at both national and international levels. The multifaceted consequences of the energy-climate-livability challenge are already testing vulnerabilities across all sectors, disproportionately affecting the most susceptible populations. The earthquake engineering community has a role to play in addressing these evolving challenges. Key areas include the seismic design of new and retrofitted civil infrastructure, the reimagined transportation systems, new onshore and offshore energy infrastructure (wind, solar, and storage systems – ranging from household to grid-scale), and mining operations for critical minerals essential for the energy transition. Special attention should be given to seismicity induced by energy projects (geothermal and hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas) and the interaction between more frequent extreme climatic events and seismic activity (e.g., more pronounced debris flows). Furthermore, the earthquake engineering community’s expertise with cyclic loading can be extended to the analysis of energy infrastructure subjected to low-amplitude repetitive loads, including storage systems, wind turbines, and thermally active components.

Bio: J. Carlos Santamarina (Professor and Clough Chair, Georgia Tech) earned his bachelor’s degree from the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba and completed graduate studies at the University of Maryland and Purdue University. Throughout his career, he has taught at NYU-Poly, the University of Waterloo, and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. His research team utilizes a combination of experimental and numerical methods to investigate geomaterials (sediments, fractured rocks, and complex fluids) within the context of energy geo-science and engineering, from resource recovery to energy and waste geostorage. He delivered the50th Terzaghi Lecture on Energy Geotechnology and is a member of both Argentinean National Academies.

Christopher Wills
Professor Emeritus, University of California, San Diego
Punctuated Equilibrium and How It Works

Abstract: In 1972, Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould introduced the term “punctuated equilibrium” to describe the bursts of evolution that follow sudden major changes in the Earth’s environment, and the long periods of relative stasis that lay between these giant events. Now, we realize that many groups of organisms have managed to survive even the severest punctuations, and that waves of extinction have taken place even during periods of slower evolutionary change. Major extinction events do put severe stress on the entire biosphere, but we will see how Darwinian evolution enables life to recover from these stresses. The powerful process of evolution often takes life in new directions even without the aid of giant environmental disasters.

Bio: Born in England, Christopher Wills grew up in Canada. From1972 until his retirement in 2010 he was associate and full professor of biology at the University of California, San Diego. He was the first to deliberately select for genetic variants in enzymes. He has explored the roles of genetic recombination in the maintenance of genetic variation in Drosophila and yeast, and the role of microsatellite DNA variation in the evolution of diseases and the evolution of our species. Most recently, he has organized a large group of ecologists from around the world to apply new analytical methods to the forces that are maintaining variation in complex ecosystems such as rainforests and coral reefs. He has written nine books for the general public on evolution and ecology, the most recent being “Why Ecosystems Matter” (Oxford University press, 2024). In 1999, he received the Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

6th Kenji Ishihara Colloquium Series on Earthquake Engineering

USGS Software Tools for Site-Specific Ground Motion Hazard Analysis
A Three-Quarter Day Short Course

Nicolas Luco, Supervisory Research Structural Engineer, U.S. Geological Survey
Peter Powers, Research Geophysicist, U.S. Geological Survey
Jorge F. Meneses, Senior Principal Geotechnical Engineer, Worley Consulting

Friday, September 13th, 2024, 8am-2:30pm
University of California, San Diego
Franklin Antonio Hall 1301

This short course will demonstrate software tools from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for site-specific ground motion hazard analysis and will provide an opportunity for feedback from earthquake engineering users. The 2022 edition of the ASCE 7 Standard (Minimum Design Loads and Associated Criteria for Buildings and Other Structures) includes changes to the site-specific ground motion procedures of Chapter 21. For example, the deterministic ground motions that cap the otherwise probabilistic (risk-targeted) values are now calculated via “scenario earthquakes” from hazard disaggregations. The new site-specific procedures are expected to be part of the 2025 California Building Code. Many of the USGS software tools are also useful for the AASHTO bridge design specifications.

MEET THE INSTRUCTORS

Dr. Nicolas Luco

Nico is a Supervisory Research Civil Engineer with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) at its Geologic Hazards Science Center in Golden, Colorado. There he serves as the Project Lead for the National Seismic Hazard Model, as of 2024. He also serves as a USGS Liaison on numerous external engineering committees that develop the seismic provisions of U.S. building codes, including the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Seismic Subcommittees for the ASCE 7 and 41 Standards. Prior to joining the USGS in 2004, he was a Senior Analysis Engineer with the insurance risk modeling company AIR Worldwide Corporation. He earned his PhD and BS in civil/structural engineering, and an MS in statistics, from Stanford University; his MS in civil/structural engineering is from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Peter Powers

Peter Powers is a research and development geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey. Peter started his career as a geologist and worked in both the mining and tech sectors before attending the University of Southern California, from which he received a PhD in geophysics and seismology. He began his time at the USGS in 2008 as a Global Earthquake Model (GEM) post-doc and developer of OpenSHA and the Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast version 3 (UCERF3). He now develops software and tools to support updates to USGS national hazard models and related research.

Dr. Jorge F. Meneses

Dr. Jorge F. Meneses is a Senior Principal Geotechnical Engineer with Worley Consulting and has more than 30 years of consultancy, project management, research, and teaching experience, in both private industry and research institutions in the field of geotechnical and earthquake engineering. He has been involved in numerous projects serving as a technical lead in geotechnical earthquake engineering and foundation engineering across the country and various markets including water, nuclear, transportation, high rise buildings, energy, schools, hospitals, commercial and industrial. Dr. Meneses frequently acts as a peer reviewer for technical conferences and technical journal publications, is a guest speaker for domestic and international conferences, and has published more than 60 technical publications. He is currently a part-time faculty member in the graduate school of San Diego State University. He was the President and Founder of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) San Diego Chapter, California Seismic Safety Commissioner, Member of the EERI Board of Directors, Honorary Chair of the ASCE Geo-Institute San Diego Chapter, ex-Member of the ASCE 7-16 (Minimum Design Loads for Buildings and Other Structures), member of the ASCE 1 (Geotechnical Analysis, Design, Construction, Inspection and Monitoring of Nuclear Safety-Related Structures) and ASCE 7-28 Committees, member of the Academy of Geo-Professionals, member of the Academy of Geo-Professionals, and a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

PROGRAM

Time		Topic/Speaker
8:00am	9:00am	Registration and Breakfast
9:00am	9:15am	Welcome and Overview of Program
9:15am	9:45am	ASCE 7-22 Chapter 21 Site-Specific Ground Motion Procedures Jorge F. Meneses
9:45am	10:30am	USGS Application of Site-Specific Procedures for ASCE 7-22 Chapter 22 Ground Motion Maps Nicolas Luco
10:30am	10:45am	Break
10:45am	11:30am	Site-Specific Hazard Curves from USGS Earthquake Hazard Toolbox Peter Powers
11:30am	12:00pm	Updated USGS Risk-Targeted Ground Motion Calculator Nicolas Luco
12:00pm	1:00pm	Lunch
1:00pm	1:30pm	Site-Specific Disaggregations from USGS Earthquake Hazard Toolbox Peter Powers
1:30pm	2:00pm	Deterministic Response Spectra from USGS Earthquake Hazard Toolbox Peter Powers
2:00pm	2:30pm	Other Current and Future USGS Software Tools Peter Powers and Nicolas Luco

VENUE
University of California, San Diego
Franklin Antonio Hall 1301
3180 Voigt Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093

REGISTRATION
Click here to register for the short course.

LODGING
Click here for a list of hotels near UCSD.

PARKING
There are two structures available for parking near Franklin Antonio Hall: Hopkins and Pangea. The closest parking structure to the venue is Hopkins Parking Structure (view here or here), located on Voigt Dr. off of Hopkins Dr. Please park on Level 7 (top floor – Parking Lot P347) where there are 92 visitor parking spaces. No other levels have visitor parking.

If Hopkins is full, please go to Pangea Parking Structure (view here or here), located on Pangea Dr. off of N. Torrey Pines Rd. Please park on Level 6 (top floor – Parking Lot P376) where there are 100 visitor parking spaces. The 5th floor only has 9 visitor parking spaces.

Parking can be paid for at a pay station within the structure, or through the ParkMobile app or website. More information can be found here.

Click image below to see the parking structures and venue highlighted (from https://maps.ucsd.edu/map/default.htm):

Click image below to see the parking structures and venue highlighted on Google Maps (from https://act.ucsd.edu/maps/):

6th Kenji Ishihara Colloquium Series on Earthquake Engineering

Punctuated Resilience, Climate Change, and Bio-Geotechnics | Next-Generation Liquefaction Modeling of Liquefaction Triggering and Surface Manifestation

Thursday, September 12th, 2024, 8am-5pm
University of California, San Diego
Franklin Antonio Hall 1301

This year’s Kenji Ishihara Colloquium will include the Next Generation Liquefaction (NGL) project (Steve Kramer, Jonathan Stewart, Scott Brandenberg, Ken Hudson, and Kristin Ulmer) and the topic of Punctuated Resilience, Climate Change, and Bio-Geotechnics (Christopher Wills, Thomas O’Rourke, J. Carlos Santamarina, and Alejandro Martinez).

PROGRAM

Session 1: Punctuated Resilience, Climate Change, and Bio-Geotechnics

8:00am	9:00am	Registration and Breakfast
9:00am	9:05am	Welcome and Overview of Program
9:05am	9:35am	Punctuated Equilibrium and How It Works Christopher Wills
9:35am	10:05am	Punctuated Resilience Thomas O'Rourke
10:05am	10:25am	Discussion
10:25am	10:40am	Break
10:40am	11:10am	Snakeskin-inspired piles and soil anchors: from bio-inspiration to field implementation Alejandro Martinez
11:10am	11:40am	The Energy-Climate-Livability Challenge: New Roles for the Earthquake Engineering Community J. Carlos Santamarina
11:40am	12:00pm	Discussion
12:00pm	1:00pm	Lunch

Session 2: Next-Generation Liquefaction Modeling of Liquefaction Triggering and Surface Manifestation

1:00pm	1:15pm	Project Overview and Database Overview John Stamatakos, Jonathan Stewart
1:15pm	1:40pm	Model Development Philosophy - Bayesian Framework Steven Kramer (Video)
1:40pm	2:05pm	Laboratory-Based Triggering Model Kristin Ulmer
2:05pm	2:30pm	Discussion
2:30pm	2:45pm	Break
2:45pm	3:20pm	Case History Processing Kenneth Hudson
3:20pm	3:45pm	Critique of Critical Layer Approach to Model Development Jonathan Stewart
3:45pm	4:00pm	Profile-Based Model Development Approach Scott Brandenberg
4:00pm	4:35pm	Proposed Manifestation and Triggering Models Kenneth Hudson
4:35pm	5:00pm	Discussion

VENUE
University of California, San Diego
Franklin Antonio Hall 1301
3180 Voigt Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093

REGISTRATION
Click here to register for the colloquium.

LODGING
Click here for a list of hotels near UCSD.

Parking can be paid for at a pay station within the structure, or through the ParkMobile app or website. More information can be found here.

Click image below to see the parking structures and venue highlighted (from https://maps.ucsd.edu/map/default.htm):

Click image below to see the parking structures and venue highlighted on Google Maps (from https://act.ucsd.edu/maps/):

Speaker Information: 5th Kenji Ishihara Colloquium Series on Earthquake Engineering

Advancing Earthquake Engineering and Functional Recovery in the Wake of the Turkey Earthquake
Speakers and Abstracts

Tristan E. Buckreis
Postdoctoral Scholar, University of California, Los Angeles
Future Impacts of Ground Motions from the February 6, 2023 Türkiye Earthquake Sequence

Abstract: The 2023 Türkiye/Syria earthquake sequence is a once-in-a-century catastrophe, which includes the February 6 M7.8 mainshock followed approximately nine hours later by a M7.7 aftershock, and many smaller aftershocks. These events occurred in a region near the boundary of the Anatolian and Arabian plates (East Anatolian Fault), in the proximity of which numerous ground motion recordings sites had been installed north of the Türkiye/Syria border. As a result, the events were well recorded both near the fault where empirical databases generally lack observations, and at rupture distances up to 571 km. The repercussions of these events will have a lasting effect on the region, and their scientific and engineering impacts will prove to be influential for future ground motion related studies and efforts, such as the NGA-West3 project. In general, the data from this earthquake sequence will be useful for earthquake engineering applications, such as ground motion studies (e.g., ergodic and non-ergodic ground motion model, GMM, development), geotechnical studies (e.g., liquefaction), and structural dynamics. Preliminary spatial analyses of residuals have highlighted complex path effects in the region, likely related to differences in crustal properties between the Anatolian and Arabian plates. Since the events were well recorded over a wide distance range (0.6 – 571 km), the data produced from this sequence can be used to better capture these complex path effects. Furthermore, the M7.8 mainshock produced 25 usable records within 10 km of the rupture surface (38 within 25 km), which represents a magnitude-and-distance range of great interest to engineers. These near-source records are vital to ground motion studies of directivity and permanent-static displacements, and will also be used as input ground motions for response-history analysis of structures. It is the burden of the seismological and earthquake engineering communities to learn from this catastrophe to advance our knowledge and practice in order to mitigate the calamity of such events in the future.

Bio: Tristan E. Buckreis is a postdoctoral scholar in the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He received his B.S. degree in Civil Engineering from California State University, Long Beach in 2017, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Civil Engineering (Geotechnical) from UCLA in 2018 and 2022, respectively. His area of expertise is in geotechnical earthquake engineering, with emphasis on ground motion characterization of regional path effects and local site response. His work also includes applications of microtremor-based horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio (HVSR) in site response prediction, and curation and development of the NGA-West3 Project relational database.

Riccardo Cappa
Senior Consulting Engineer, Simpson Gumpertz & Heger (SGH)
Presentation Title Coming Soon!

Abstract: Coming soon!

Bio: Riccardo Cappa, Ph.D., P.E., has more than 10 years of professional experience in performance evaluation of power and water infrastructures. His academic research examined the seismic hazard and failure potential of levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, California, through a combination of geotechnical centrifuge experiments and numerical studies. He is currently a Senior Consulting Engineer at SGH in the Newport Beach (CA) office and specializes in seismic probabilistic risk assessment methods for industrial and power generating plants, with a focus on nuclear power facilities. Riccardo has co-authored more than 30 papers and standards, including several research reports for the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). He has recently received the 2022 Heki Shibata early career award from the International Association for Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology (IASMiRT) for his nuclear research and the 2022 Thomas Middlebrooks award from ASCE GI for his academic contribution to advancing the understanding of the seismic response of organic soils. He has collaborated with EPRI to develop improved equipment seismic capacities based on experience data and Bayesian inference, and has contributed to update and expand the SQUG online database, one of the largest collection of post-earthquake investigation data, including observations from 200+ large facilities subject to 35+ earthquakes. He has performed post-earthquake investigations of power and water infrastructures in Alaska (2018 M7.1), Ridgecrest (2019 M7.1), and Puerto Rico (2020 M6.4), and has recently led the EERI Lifelines reconnaissance team in Turkey following the February 2023 M7.8 earthquake.

Louise K. Comfort
Professor Emerita and Former Director, Center for Disaster Management, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh
The Gap Between Knowledge and Action: The 6 February 2023 Türkiye Earthquakes

Abstract: Coming soon!

Bio: Louise K. Comfort is professor emerita and former director, Center for Disaster Management, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh. She is a Visiting Researcher at the Policy Lab, Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), University of California, Berkeley. She is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration since 2006 and received the 2020 Fred Riggs Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Section on International Comparative Administration, American Society for Public Administration (SICA-ASPA). Her recent books include: Comfort, L.K. 2019 The Dynamics of Risk: Changing Technologies and Collective Action in Seismic Events, Princeton University Press; Comfort, L.K. and M. L. Rhodes, Eds. 2022. Global Risk Management: The Role of Collective Cognition in Response to COVID-19, Routledge Publishing; and Comfort, L.K. and H. P. Rahayu, Eds. 2023. Hazardous Seas: A Sociotechnical Framework for Early Tsunami Detection and Warning, Island Press. She has done field studies of 24 earthquake response systems in 14 countries, including a small social science reconnaissance study following the 6 February 2023 earthquakes in Türkiye. Her research focuses on decision making in response to natural hazards and other urgent events: earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, wildfire, and COVID-19.

Rupa Garai
Senior Associate Principal, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Lessons Learned from Turkey Earthquake

Abstract: Coming soon!

Bio: Rupa Garai, P.E., S.E., LEED AP, is a Senior Associate Principal at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, with 20+ years of experience in structural engineering services. She has lead the design of new and retrofitted structure, including mixed-use towers, commercial buildings, airports, courthouses, spec laboratories, education, residential, and office towers. Rupa is interested in exploring innovative concepts and ideas and is actively involved in the research and development of energy-dissipating technologies. She has published 25+ papers and is an active member of American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) Technical Committee and BSSC 2026 Provisions Update Committee (PUC) and Issue Team (IT), where she chairs and co-chairs various committees.

Kit Miyamoto
Global CEO, Miyamoto International, Inc.
2023 Türkiye Earthquake: State of the Art Rapid Assessment and Reconstruction of Damaged Structures to Reduce Internally Displaced Population

Abstract: 2023 Turkey earthquake caused 35,000 mid-rise buildings collapse, killed 51,000 people and 4.1 million people homeless. The program conducted by the largest municipality in the affected area, Gaziantep provided innovative rapid shelter solutions for Internally Displaced Population by assisting them in returning to repairable buildings.

Twenty-four hours immediate after earthquake, a team of international and Turkish engineers dispatched to understand damage context and assess ongoing emergency response and early recovery efforts. The Jet Proportion Lab (JPL) provided satellite data showing geographical point changes comparing pre and post-disaster imagery. This data was used to develop damage proxy maps for earthquake-affected cities and towns in the disaster impacted areas of southern Turkey and identify the areas for response attention. Using the remote satellite images, the urban areas within the damage zone was computed.

Next, the program provided technical assistance on cost-efficient, rapidly implementable repairs required to make light and moderate damaged building stock habitable. The program conducted state of art app-based vulnerability assessment surveys to identify the vulnerability classification and cost-efficient repair method based on locally available materials and labors for each damage type. BOQs and repair cost estimates generated enabled households to repair their homes rapidly. 3,100 structures were assessed, supporting an estimated 75,000 people.

Bio: Click here to read about Dr. Miyamoto.

Osman Ozbulut
Associate Professor, University of Virginia
Bridging the Gap: Understanding Turkey’s February 6 Earthquake Ground Motions Through a Structural Lens

Abstract: The 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquake sequence included two very high-magnitude earthquakes that occurred approximately 9 hours apart on neighboring fault lines, affecting a wide region in southeastern Türkiye. Not only did the seismic activity exceed expectations, but also the damage observed after these earthquakes surpassed all predictions. In this presentation, we will discuss the damage observed in reinforced concrete (RC) frame and shear wall buildings, as well as the performance of seismically isolated RC buildings. This discussion will take into account the seismic demands imposed on such structures, estimated from ground motion measurements obtained from the nearest seismic stations. We will also explore the effects of changes in seismic hazard maps and construction practices on the observed structural performance. The lessons learned from these events can be applied to the design and construction of future buildings, enhancing their resilience in the face of seismic activity and contributing to the overall safety of our built environment.

Bio: Osman Ozbulut is a Professor of Civil Engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on advancing a new generation of resilient and sustainable civil infrastructure through innovations in structural systems, materials, and sensing technologies. He has conducted extensive research on developing and characterizing shape memory alloy (SMA)-based self-centering passive energy dissipation and seismic isolation devices, aimed at mitigating damage and enhancing the post-event functionality of buildings exposed to seismic hazards. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)Infrastructure Resilience Division (IRD) Emerging Technologies Committee, the ASCE Structural Engineering Institute(SEI) Seismic Effects Committee, and the Structural Control and Sensing Committee. Additionally, he serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Intelligent Material Systems & Structures, showcasing his commitment to advancing the field.

Grace Parker
Research Geophysicist, United States Geological Survey Earthquake Science Center
Characterization of Source, Path and Site Effects on Ground Motions From the 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Türkiye, Earthquake Sequence

Abstract:We seek to understand the physical processes that generated the strong ground motions observed during the 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Türkiye, earthquake sequence, reasons why recorded motions may differ from existing ground motion models (GMMs), and factors controlling the observed variability. The devastating 2023 Türkiye earthquake sequence, including the M7.8 Pazarcik mainshock and the M7.5 Elbistan aftershock, occurred in the Eastern Anatolian Fault Zone. Because these destructive earthquakes represent an unprecedented set of near-source ground-motion records, understanding their genesis could improve GMMs and hazard estimates in Türkiye and worldwide. We perform an ensemble GMM residual analysis, examining ground motions from the 2023 sequence as well as other previous regional earthquakes, using a total of 63 M5+ events recorded on 1116 stations. Using many smaller earthquakes allows for robust sampling of source, site, and path effects, including consideration of more complex spatially varying and azimuth-dependent effects that we might expect to be present on a nationwide scale. We consider ground-motion residuals relative to the reference GMMs of Boore et al. (2014) and Kale et al. (2015) for spectral acceleration between 0.05s and 10s and peak ground motions. This talk will describe the partitioning and analysis of residuals into components representing repeatable source, path, and site effects towards understanding the relative contributions and physical implications of each.

Bio: Grace Parker is a research geophysicist at the USGS Earthquake Science Center. Her focus is understanding and modeling earthquake ground motions, with a special interest in seismic site response. She has developed models as a part of the NGA-East and NGA-Subduction projects that have been adopted for use in the USGS National Seismic Hazard Model. She is also involved in the USGS-led Shake Alert earthquake early warning project, where she works to determine the best real-time methods to estimate shaking intensities used to generate alerts. She holds a B.S. in Applied Geophysics and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from UCLA.

Esra Zengin
Senior Researcher, Natural Hazards Risk and Resiliency Research Center, University of California, Los Angeles
Investigation of Damage Potential of Ground Motions of the 6 February 2023 Pazarcik Turkey Earthquake by Developing Spatial Distribution of Inelastic Spectra
Coauthored by Yousef Bozorgnia, Aidin Tamhidi, Silvia Mazzoni

Abstract: On February 6, 2023, a devastating earthquake of magnitude 7.8 struck the southeastern part of Turkey, followed by a powerful aftershock with a magnitude of 7.7. Extensive damage in southern Turkey and northern Syria posed significant challenges for modern seismic design and existing structures’ resilience. This study primarily focused on evaluating the destructive potential of ground motions resulting from the Pazarcik mainshock, with a key emphasis on analyzing inelastic strength demand spectra. These spectra provide invaluable insights, particularly when considering the yield coefficient, denoted as “Cy”. The Cy represents the ratio between a structure’s yield strength (the point where it starts to undergo plastic deformation) and its total weight. In seismic design, engineers ensure the Cy value matches the desired ductility level, which characterizes a structure’s capacity to deform and absorb energy without failing. This Cy-ductility relationship is vital in creating earthquake-resistant buildings by balancing strength and ductility. Inelastic constant-ductility spectra were constructed by utilizing recording stations located within 100 km of the rupture distance (i.e., the closest distance to the fault plane). The results showed that, for structural periods of 0.5 seconds and 1.0 seconds, the Cy demand at a ductility level of 3 exceeded the Cy levels specified in the seismic design code for the 475-year return period, particularly when the rupture distance was less than 10 km. Given recorded ground motions, we generated time series for non-instrumented sites using a Gaussian Process Regression model (Tamhidi et al. 2023). Subsequent inelastic analyses were conducted, employing simulated ground motions to examine the variation in ductility demand across the area. The study concluded by comparing its outcomes with the observed damage patterns.

Bio: Dr. Esra Zengin holds a Ph.D. in Structural and Earthquake Engineering from Bogazici University, Istanbul, and received a B.S. degree in Civil Engineering from Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. She joined UCLA’s Natural Hazards Risk and Resiliency Research Center in 2022, following research positions at UC Davis and UC Berkeley, and a faculty position at Beykent University, Istanbul. Her research interests include characterization and modeling of ground motion, probabilistic seismic hazard analysis, seismic performance and risk assessment of structures.

Reid Zimmerman
Technical Director, KPFF
Recovery Lessons for the U.S. in the Wake of the Kahramanmaraş Turkey Earthquake Sequence

Abstract: Southeastern Turkey and northern Syria were struck by two significant magnitude earthquakes on February 6th, 2023 that led to widespread severe building damage and collapse and an earthquake-affected area of 14 million people. Reid traveled to the earthquake-affected areas as part of an ASCE Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) team approximately seven weeks after the earthquakes. He will share his and the team’s observations from reconnaissance conducted over 10 days and more than eight cities, especially focusing on implications for recovery following a major earthquake in the U.S.

Bio: Reid Zimmerman is the Technical Director for the Portland, Oregon office of KPFF and has focused his career on advanced structural systems (e.g., seismic isolation, energy dissipation, rocking systems, etc.) and complex analytical techniques for assessing the effects of extreme hazards on structures. He is active in U.S. code development through ASCE 41, ASCE 7 and the Building Seismic Safety Council including chairing subcommittees on functional recovery and seismic isolation and energy dissipation.

Ali Sumer
Chief Intelligence Officer, Emergency Operations Center, California Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI)
2023 Turkiye Earthquake Sequence: Performance of Hospitals

Abstract: The 2023 Türkiye Earthquakes provide an unprecedented learning opportunity due to the strong earthquake shaking affecting modern engineered buildings. A hospital reconnaissance team, consisting of engineers from USA and Türkiye and a medical doctor from Türkiye, visited many hospitals in the earthquake area. The team collected structural and nonstructural data to identify what conditions allowed hospitals to continue to serve the community and which prevented the continuity of care. Of particular interest was learning the impediments to functional recovery.

Bio: Ali is the manager of hospital seismic retrofit program at California Department of Health Care Access and Information (formerly called OSHPD). He is a licensed structural engineer with a Ph.D. in Structural Engineering. He plays an active role on Emergency Operations Center at HCAI, acting as chief intelligence officer. Prior to joining the state, Ali worked in private industry for 9 years. He has performed several seismic retrofit projects, and has experience in performance-based design using nonlinear analysis techniques, building collapse risk analysis, and equipment shake table tests. He served as president of SEAOC Central. He is the co-creator of seismicmaps.org website to serve the engineering community.

5th Kenji Ishihara Colloquium Series on Earthquake Engineering

Advancing Earthquake Engineering and Functional Recovery in the Wake of the Turkey Earthquake

October 2023
Virtual Webinars

Join us for this free three-part webinar series on the lessons learned from the 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Turkey Earthquake Sequence. Researchers, expert engineers, and social scientists will come together in this Kenji Ishihara colloquium to discuss structural engineering and the far-reaching social implications of the Turkey earthquake sequence. Experts will share their insights on the lessons learned from the Turkey earthquake and how these are shaping the future of earthquake engineering, disaster preparedness, and response to enhance engineering practices and expedite seismic functional recovery.

Click image on right to view event flyer.

PROGRAM

Webinar #1: Thursday, October 5th, 2023, 11am-2pm PDT
Lessons Learned from Processing Ground Motions & Code Comparisons
Panelist 1 – Grace Parker, USGS Earthquake Science Center, Characterization of Source, Path and Site Effects on Ground Motions From the 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Türkiye, Earthquake Sequence
Panelist 2 – Tristan E. Buckreis, UCLA, Future Impacts of Ground Motions from the February 6, 2023 Türkiye Earthquake Sequence
Panelist 3 – Osman Ozbulut, University of Virginia, Bridging the Gap: Understanding Turkey’s February 6 Earthquake Ground Motions Through a Structural Lens
Panelist 4 – Esra Zengin, UCLA, Investigation of Damage Potential of Ground Motions of the 6 February 2023 Pazarcik Turkey Earthquake by Developing Spatial Distribution of Inelastic Spectra

Webinar 2: Thursday, October 12th, 2023, 11am-2pm PDT
Functional Recovery of Buildings
Panelist 1 – Ali Sumer, HCAI
Panelist 2 – Reid Zimmerman, KPFF, Recovery Lessons for the U.S. in the Wake of the Kahramanmaraş Turkey Earthquake Sequence
Functional Recovery of Lifelines
Panelist 3 – Riccardo Cappa, Simpson Gumpertz & Heger (SGH)
Panelist 4 – Ezra Jampole, Exponent
Panelist 5 – Rupa Garai, Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill, Lessons Learned from Turkey Earthquake

Webinar 3: Friday, October 27th, 2023, 11am-2pm PDT
Impacts to Social Recovery
Panelist 1 – Louise K. Comfort, University of Pittsburgh, The Gap Between Knowledge and Action: The 6 February 2023 Türkiye Earthquakes
Panelist 2 – Kit Miyamoto, Miyamoto International, Inc., 2023 Türkiye Earthquake: State of the Art Rapid Assessment and Reconstruction of Damaged Structures to Reduce Internally Displaced Population

REGISTRATION
Click here to register for the colloquium.

SDXEAA & EERI PE Seismic Design Workshop

Saturday, September 30th, 2023
9:45am-1:45pm
College-Rolando Branch Library
6600 Montezuma Road
San Diego, CA 92115

San Diego Chi Epsilon Alumni Association (SDXEAA) is teaming up with EERI San Diego to co-host a free introductory workshop to seismic design for the California Seismic Principles Exam of the PE. Topics to be covered include spectral response, base shear, ASCE 7-16 seismic design criteria, and shear wall design, with example problems. This workshop will provide an overview of key concepts meant as a starting point for participants in their exam preparation. Light refreshments will be provided.

This event is open to members of the public, including non-members of SDXEAA or EERI SD.

Click the image on the right to view the event flyer.

REGISTRATION
Click here to register for the workshop. Space is limited.

ASCE EERI Joint Luncheon 2023

WHAT’S NEW IN THE SEISMIC PERFORMANCE OF NONSTRUCTURAL COMPONENTS?

Tuesday, September 26th, 2023
11:30am-1:30pm
Stone Brewing Liberty Station
2816 Historic Decatur Road, Unit 116
San Diego, CA 92106

ASCE San Diego Section is co-hosting their September Lunch Program with EERI, featuring guest speakers Dr. Gloria Faraone, Assistant Professor at SDSU, and Dr. Roberto Nascimbene, Associate Professor at IUSS Pavia. The luncheon will review damage of non-structural elements from various international earthquakes, as well as results of post-installed anchors undergoing testing at UCSD.

For members of EERI and ASCE = $45.00
For non-members = $55.00
For public agency workers = $30.00

For more information, click the image to the right to view the event flyer.

REGISTRATION
Click here to register for the luncheon.
Registration is required as no walk-ins will be allowed.

Speaker Information: 4th Kenji Ishihara Colloquium Series on Earthquake Engineering

Impact of Climate Change on Community Earthquake Resilience
Speakers and Abstracts

Daniel Armanios
BT Professor, University of Oxford
The Role of Physical Infrastructure on Inequality

Abstract:When we think of physical infrastructure, we often focus on the assets themselves, such as bridges, pipelines, transmission systems, and roads, amongst others. However, we often think less about the role of the people and organizations that influence and guide the design and management of such systems. At the same time, when we think of structural inequality, we think about long-standing institutional norms and practices that advantage one group over another. However, we do think less about how such practices can become physically embodied in infrastructure systems that allow such inequality to scale and to persist. In other words, perhaps inequality is not just “structural” metaphorically (via institutions) but also literally (via physical infrastructure). My talk will bring together these views. First, we will demonstrate that access to infrastructure does not evenly accrue to everyone, unlike how prevailing models incorporate infrastructure. Second, we will demonstrate the deleterious ramifications of this uneven access, namely that certain disadvantaged groups may be systematically shut out from the U.S. high-tech economy. Third, we show one possible mechanism for how this may occur – infrastructure as “institutional relics”. Infrastructure is “institutional” in that they are sited and designed based upon the authoritative standards of the time and/or location. They are relics in that given their long design life, these systems often persist, even after their standards are later updated and changed. Finally, I will discuss some possible strategies for addressing these challenges and their implications and framing with regards to earthquake resilience.

Bio: Dr. Daniel Armanios is the BT Professor of Major Programme Management at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School as well as a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Leadership at Tsinghua University’s Schwarzman College. He was formerly an Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy. Daniel’s current research interests lie at the intersection of institutions, engineering systems, and public policy & entrepreneurship. More specifically, he focuses on the social processes that influence how physical and scientific infrastructure is built and subsequently used to achieve entrepreneurship, innovation, and sustainable development outcomes.

Sahar Derakhshan
Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability (IoES)
University of California, Los Angeles
Intersection between climate change and earthquake resilience: Community resilience

Abstract: One common ground for the impacts of climate change and earthquakes is the community itself and its adaptive capacity, existing vulnerabilities and inherent resilience. This translates into the disproportionate impact of hazard events across communities, which we have seen in previous disasters and will observe more if we do not include this important aspect in our resilience and mitigation planning. What are the current trends in measuring social vulnerability and community resilience, how can these merge with earthquake engineering designs, and where are the research/practice gaps in this union? We will explore the answer to these questions through some examples from previous events and mitigation plans.

Bio: Dr. Sahar Derakhshan is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability (IoES), UCLA and an affiliated researcher at the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute (HVRI), University of South Carolina. She is a civil engineer (B.Sc.), has received her doctorate in geography from University of South Carolina, and holds a Master of Public Policy (MPP) from University of California, Berkeley. Her work experience extends from industry to research institutions including projects for the World Bank for risk assessment and National Academy of Sciences (Gulf Research Program). Her research interest is to study and assess the effect of geospatial inequalities, social and economic status, and institutions in taking action to foster change in mitigation planning and disaster recovery, for a safer and more resilient community.

Susan Cutter
Carolina Distinguished Professor, University of South Carolina
Director, Hazards Vulnerability and Resilience Institute (HVRI)
Disaster Inequality and Equitable Risk Reduction

Abstract: The presentation examines the evidentiary basis for equitable risk reduction in an era of increasing risk inequality. Changes in the nature of hazards and their management have created a new normal of extreme events, increasingly complex and cascading hazards and fostered persistent disaster inequalities. Recognizing such inequalities is not the same as showing proof of them and integrating the empirically based evidence into practice and policy. Examples from South Carolina’s recent disasters experience illustrates how to translate and integrate research into disaster mitigation and resilience policy and practice at local, state, and federal levels.

Bio: Dr. Susan Cutter is a Carolina Distinguished Professor of Geography at the University of South Carolina and director of the Hazards Vulnerability and Resilience Institute (HVRI). She has authored or edited 15 books, 150+ plus peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and mentored more than 60 masters and doctoral candidates. Her research focusses on disaster vulnerability and resilience science with specific reference to methods, models, and metrics. Her scientific contributions include the hazards of place model of vulnerability, the disaster resilience of place (DROP) model, as well as tools for assessing spatial and temporal variability in vulnerability (Social Vulnerability Index or SoVI®) and resilience (Baseline Resilience Indicators for Communities [BRIC] Index). Her policy-relevant work focuses on the evidentiary basis for hazard mitigation and disaster recovery policy and practice at local, state, national, and international levels. In particular, she continues to lead investigations of the disproportionate spatial and temporal impacts of disasters on vulnerable populations and the places where they live. Dr. Cutter is an elected fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She received an honorary doctorate from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (2015) and elected as a foreign member of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters. She was also the recipient of her discipline’s three highest awards: American Association of Geographers (AAG) Lifetime Achievement, Presidential Achievement, and the Wilbanks Award for Transformational Research.

Negar Elhami-Khorasani
Associate Professor, University at Buffalo
Planning for fire following earthquake considering interconnected infrastructure systems

Abstract: Fire following earthquake is a cascading multi-hazard event in seismic-prone regions and can lead to significant social and economic losses. Past events, such as the 1994 Northridge earthquake with 110 earthquake-related fire ignitions, confirm the increased likelihood of post-earthquake fires. The impacts of cascading events become more acute in modern communities with interdependent infrastructure systems, where disruption in one system could affect the operability of other infrastructure systems. This presentation discusses the impacts of fire following earthquake on dense urban communities. The proposed framework incorporates the effects of earthquake damage on electric, water, transportation, and building inventory. A decision-making algorithm is implemented to guide the response of the fire department to locations of ignition considering available resources in terms of fire engines and water pressure, delayed response time, and fire spread within and between buildings. The proposed framework is applied to a case study and the results are demonstrated in terms of the efficiency of suppression action by the fire department and direct economic losses. The developed framework can benefit public safety and community resilience to cascading multi-hazard events.

Bio: Negar Elhami-Khorasani is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering at the University at Buffalo. Her primary areas of research are performance-based design and resilience assessment of structures and communities under extreme hazards including structure fires, wildfires, earthquakes, and cascading multi-hazard events, such as post-earthquake fires. The outcomes of her research enhance safety by developing codes and guidelines, and minimize losses by optimizing mitigation, preparedness, and response strategies. Elhami-Khorasani is the co-Chair of the ASCE/SEI Fire Protection Committee and led the Fire Following Earthquake Task Group in charge of publishing a book on procedures for analysis of buildings for post-earthquake fires. She serves as an associate editor for Fire Technology by Springer Nature. She is also a member of the fib, IAFSS, and the SEAoNY Resilience committees. She was the recipient of the 2020 AISC Early Career Faculty award and the Fire Protection Research Foundation Medal. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Department of Transportation, United States Geological Survey, National Fire Protection Association, and ASCE Structural Engineering Institute.

alex grant
Research Civil Engineer, United States Geological Survey Earthquake Science Center
The Impacts of Sea Level Rise on San Francisco Bay-area Liquefaction Hazard

Abstract: The San Francisco Bay area (SFBA) in California is a densely populated, low-lying coastal region built on alluvial sediment and fill situated between the highly active San Andreas and Hayward fault systems. The region has repeated demonstrated the damaging effects of liquefaction in past earthquakes, and the prediction of future liquefaction potential throughout the Bay Area remains an important topic of research. Motivated by requests from emergency managers in response to the USGS ‘HayWired’ earthquake scenario (a M7.0 earthquake on the Hayward fault), we explored how liquefaction likelihood and impacts are expected to change over the coming decades with climate change driven sea-level-rise. This talk will discuss the results of our study on how future ‘HayWired’ earthquakes may develop greater coseismic (liquefaction) impacts due to sea-level-rise.

Bio: alex grant is a Research Civil Engineer at the U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Science Center with an interest in regional-scale seismic and coseismic hazards, with emphases on subduction zones and the effects of climate change. alex got his Ph.D. from the University of Washington and B.S.E. from Tufts University in Civil and Environmental Engineering studying earthquake-triggered landslide hazard and risk.

Hussam Mahmoud
George T. Abell Professor, Colorado State University
Resilience of Healthcare Systems Under the Compounding Impact of Pandemics and Climate-Intensified Wildfires

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has graphically underscored the limitations and weaknesses of the ability of healthcare systems to effectively deal with a novel virus outbreak. Natural disasters in the U.S. further compound the effect of pandemics with conflicting mitigation strategies. Considering the compound impact of natural disasters and pandemics is particularly important given the predicted increase in intensity and frequency of climate-driven natural disasters and the increasing frequency of novel infectious diseases. To date, frameworks for quantifying the collective impact of pandemics and climate-intensified wildfires on hospitals are nonexistent. Moreover, analytical methods for capturing the dynamic spatiotemporal variability in capacity and demand of healthcare systems posed by different stressors are lacking. In this presentation, the combined effect of wildfire, inisfied by climate change, and pandemics on a network of hospitals will be investigated. Wildfire spread model will be used to evalaute the vulernability of the built-environment at the community level while accounting for how future climates might intensify structural vulnerabilities. Structural damgage from the wildfire scenarios will be combined with varying courses of the spread of COVID-19 to evaluate the effectiveness of different strategies for managing patient demand. The results show that losing access to medical care is a function of the relative occurrence time between the two events and is substantial in some cases and is likely to worsen in the future due to climate events. By applying viable mitigation strategies and optimizing resource allocation, patient outcomes could be substantially improved under the combined hazards.

Bio: Hussam Mahmoud is the George T. Abell Professor in Infrastructure in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Colorado State University (CSU). He is Director of the Structural Laboratory at CSU and the academic advisor for the AISC Student Steel Bridge Competition. He obtained his BSc and MSc in civil engineering from the University of Minnesota and his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Prior to pursuing his Ph.D., he was the manager of the NEES Earthquake Laboratory at the UIUC and a research scientist at Lehigh University. Dr. Mahmoud has authored over 250 publications and has given more than 140 presentations including 100 invited talks at national and international conferences and workshops. He is the current chair of the ASCE Committee on Multi-Hazard Mitigation and has chaired and served on other ASCE and AASHTO technical committees. He is the recipient of various awards, including the American Institute of Steel Construction early faculty career award, the American Iron and Steel Institute Robert J. Dexter Memorial Lecture Award, and the Air Force summer faculty fellowship award. He has been invited to various symposia by the U.S. National Academies, the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the Royal Institute of International Affairs and has recently been selected by the NASEM among the New Voices Cohort. His research has received media coverage through citations and interviews in numerous venues, including Nature Climate Change, The U.S. National Academy of Engineering, Smithsonian Magazine, and CNN.

Therese McAllister
Community Resilience Group Leader and Program Manager, National Institute of Standards and Technology
Enabling Community Resilience through Design Practices

Abstract: Communities are embracing resilience planning to prepare for future hazard events and ongoing stressors. Resilience addresses the ability of a community to recover its services and functions within a specified timeframe, averting potential disruptions, and to make improvements for future events and conditions. Built infrastructure plays a key role in community resilience.

Resilience builds upon well-established concepts that include urban planning, hazard characterization, reliability, life safety, risk management, mitigation, and emergency response. It provides a framework to integrate these and other concepts, such as functional recovery.

An overview of community resilience and its relevance to the built environment will be provided as context for considering resilience in the design process. Resilient buildings and infrastructure minimize damage and losses and help identify damage that is repairable within a specified time to support their role in recovering social and economic functions. While this is an active area of research and development, principles and available guidance for designing resilient buildings and infrastructure will be presented. An update on current progress and challenges will be presented, as well as the contributions that engineers can make to help communities become more resilient, with a focus on performance-based design and other tools.

Bio: Dr. Therese McAllister is the Community Resilience Group Leader and Program Manager in the Engineering Laboratory (EL) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). She is also the NIST Technical Liaison for the NIST-funded Center for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning, led by Colorado State University. She conducts research on community resilience, with a focus on the integrated performance of physical infrastructure and social and economic systems. She has expertise in structural reliability, risk assessment, and failure analysis of buildings and infrastructure systems.

She was recognized with the 2021 ASCE Walter P Moore, Jr award and 2018 ASCE Ernest E Howard Award for her research on structural codes and standards and on resilience. Dr. McAllister is a Distinguished Member of ASCE, a Structural Engineering Institute Fellow, and serves on the ASCE/SEI 7 standard committee, Infrastructure Resilience Division, the Technical Council on Life-Cycle Performance, Safety, Reliability and Risk of Structural Systems, and the SEI Board Level Resilience Committee.

Kit Miyamoto and Amir Gilani
Global CEO, Miyamoto International, Inc.
Manager, Miyamoto International, Inc.
Impact of climate change on the performance of the built environment

Abstract: Natural disasters have caused significant damage to the built environment in recent years. The 2005 Hurricane Katrina, the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, the 2021 Western state wildfires in the US, and the 2022 Appalachia floods resulted in loss of life, damage to infrastructure and significant financial losses. The adverse impacts of climate change execrates the natural hazard vulnerability to infrastructure—sea level rise could inundate roads; larger and more frequent hurricanes could cause damage and increase the risk of flooding; higher rainfalls increase the probability of landslides; and higher temperatures results in additional fire damage. Many of the climate change effects also have adverse impacts on the seismic vulnerability of infrastructure: i) increased temperatures could result in closure of expansion joints for roadway and railroad bridges and induce additional demand into the columns; ii) increased flooding could undermine foundation of structures and bridges; cause scour and undermine their seismic performance; iii) increased fire danger could result in underground electric conducts that can be vulnerable to seismic loading; and iii) and increase rainfall could cause builders in developing counties to use thicker and heavier roofs causing building damage in the earthquakes.

In this presentation, the authors will focus on two recent events; collapse of the 2021 Surfside Condominium collapse in Miami, Fl; and ii) performance of buildings in recent earthquakes worldwide. Structural design mitigation to manage the risk posed to buildings will be discussed.

Steve Moddemeyer
Principal, CollinsWoerman
Command and Control is for Emergencies. Shared Values is for Adaptation and Recovery

Abstract: Before the floods of November, 2021, the Whatcom County Tribes, farmers, small cities, and Whatcom County River and Flood engineers had years of collaboration in the Nooksack River. The Floodplain Integrated Planning (FLIP) brought together conflicting interests to work together to reduce flood damage to farms and cities while also creating and supporting restoration of lost endangered fish habitat. FLIP successfully managed millions of dollars of well-designed solutions with multiple benefits by deploying shared values, good listening, advanced monitoring, and joint project proposals. On November 12, 2022 five atmospheric rivers hit the region in quick succession pouring trillions of gallons of rain into the Nooksack watershed causing widespread flooding in Whatcom and British Columbia. Damage in the billions of dollars took place as the river flooded wide areas of Whatcom as well as an ancient river course heading north to Canada’s Frazier River system. Response to the floods required quick action and multiple rescues. What was once a collaborative partnership between different interests shifted to command and control during and immediately after the flood. Trust built before the disaster was deeply stressed as major real-time decisions with potential long-term impacts were rushed toward implementation under extraordinary conditions. Yet once the floods retreated, two things remained: damage and the command and control mindset. Well-meaning state and federal emergency management agencies who excel in first response stepped into the community with a mix of opaque processes, acronym-heavy procedures, non-intuitive programs and regulatory expectations. At what point in a disaster is it appropriate to transition from command and control to collaboration? How can federal and state entities with disaster response priorities leverage local trust and rely on shared values collaborations to enhance the adaptive capacity of locally diverse communities as they recover from extreme events?

Bio: Steve Moddemeyer is a principal of CollinsWoerman with 31 years’ experience leading governments, land owners, and project teams towards increased sustainability and resilience. He creates tools, policies and programs that empower communities to implement resilience principles into planning for land use and urban infrastructure. He works on climate change adaptation, sustainability strategies for large urban redevelopments, and advanced sustainability strategies for land owners, cities, counties, and utilities. Steve is currently serving as Chair of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee on Hazard Mitigation and Resilience Applied Research Topics. He is an Advisor to the John Hopkins Center for Health Security on the Post-Pandemic Recovery Project. He is a past member of the National Academies of Sciences Resilient America Roundtable (two terms). He serves as an advisor to the University of Washington Masters in Infrastructure Management and Planning, Member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature: Resilience Theme Group, and founding member of The Little Think Tank, a group of academic and policy experts that focus on resilient recovery actions for American communities. Trained as a landscape architect, Steve creates multi-benefit implementation strategies that bring together natural and human systems by applying socio-ecological principles to system design, urban design, policy design, and industrial symbiosis development.

Adam Rose
Professor, University of Southern California
What Businesses Can Do to Plan for Recovery from Earthquakes and Climate Change Impacts Simultaneously

Abstract: Concern over climate change is increasing as evidence mounts about its destructive forces. This includes the effects of short-term climate variability (e.g., droughts, wildfires, more intense hurricanes) in addition to longer-term threats (e.g., temperature increases, sea-level rise). Many are quick to point to a supposed dichotomy between climate-disasters and earthquakes. This is the case when one considers the distinct causes and some of the impacts, but is much less so when it comes to recovery. If a factory with damage to its roof cannot produce at its pre-disaster level or if it no longer has access to one of its critical production inputs because one of its suppliers is damaged, the cause of the damage is irrelevant. Factories, and any other businesses and institutions, are essentially the same boat in terms of repair and reconstruction, as well as coping with the critical input disruption in the meantime.

Resilience is often defined broadly to include all actions to reduce risk, ranging from mitigation to emergency planning to emergency management to recovery. However, the Latin root of the term is to “rebound”. This presentation will focus on that aspect and present important concepts related to static and dynamic aspects of resilience, as well as inherent and adaptive ones. It will present 11 tactics the businesses can use to cope with supply disruptions in ways that repair and reconstruction can be accelerated so as to reduce business interruption (BI) losses. While property damage is often the emphasis of risk reduction, and the primary target of pre-event mitigation, BI just begins when the disaster strikes and continues until the entity has recovered. In fact, BI, typically measured in terms of gross domestic product or employment, can often exceed the level of property damage (e.g., the 2001 World Trade Center Attack Hurricane Katrina). Resilience in this context is all about business continuity and reducing BI.

The presentation will also present results of recent research to estimate the cost-effectiveness of 11 resilience tactics. The estimation is based on surveys of victims of Hurricanes Sandy Harvey. It will also present a decision-support tool known as the Business Resilience Calculator (BRC), which small and medium-sized businesses can use to identify and implement the most cost-effective resilience tactics.

Bio: Adam Rose is a Research Professor in the University of Southern California Sol Price School of Public Policy, and Senior Research Fellow at USC’s Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Threats and Emergencies (CREATE). He has spearheaded the development of CREATE’s comprehensive economic consequence analysis framework and has done pioneering research on resilience at the level of the individual business/household, market/industry and regional/national economy. He is the author of several books and more than 200 peer-reviewed publications. He is the recipient of several honors, including the Distinguished Research Award from the International Society for Integrated Risk Management.

Luis “Vance” Taylor
Chief, Office of Access and Functional Needs, California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services
The Whole Community: We Succeed or Fail Together

Abstract: Integrating every phase of the emergency management process to address the needs of individuals with access and functional needs before, during, and after disasters furthers preparedness, builds resilience, and empowers the whole community.

Bio: Luis “Vance” Taylor is the Chief of the Office of Access and Functional Needs at the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. Vance is responsible for ensuring the needs of individuals with disabilities and persons with access or functional needs are identified before, during and after disasters and integrated into the State’s emergency management systems.

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Vance was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy as a child and uses a power wheelchair. He has worked in Washington, D.C. as an advisor for two different members of Congress, directed security policy at a national water association and been a principal at a top-ranked homeland security and emergency management consulting firm. Vance is a nationally recognized public speaker and advocate for individuals with disabilities.

Vance has a Master’s degree in homeland security from the University of Connecticut and an undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University in communications. He is married to his sweetheart, Casey, and they have two wonderful daughters.

Vance and his family live in Rancho Cordova, CA.

Benjamin Zaitchik
Professor, Johns Hopkins University
Anticipating and addressing complex climate hazards

Abstract: Both climate extremes and earthquakes can present severe shocks to human and natural systems, bringing the potential for substantial harm during the event and continued burden during the recovery period. This presentation will introduce three themes from the study of climate risks that may be relevant to thinking about earthquake resilience in the context of global change. First, I will review recent updates to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change framework for evaluating risk as a function of vulnerability, exposure, impact, and response. Next, I will consider case studies in propagating risks, in which an initial climate extreme has spatially or temporally distal impacts via its impacts on markets and other networks. Finally, I will address concepts of compound and cascading hazards, which may be relevant to earthquake resilience both as an analogy and as multi-hazard processes in which climate and earthquake risks interact to affect outcomes.

Bio: Dr. Benjamin Zaitchik is a Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. He is an Earth scientist whose work includes study of fundamental atmospheric and hydrological processes as well as application of this knowledge to problems of water resources, agriculture, and human health. In this context, Dr. Zaitchik leads multiple projects focused on the propagation of climate stresses through complex coupled natural-human systems. Prior to joining Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Zaitchik was a Research Associate at NASA and a AAAS Fellow at the U.S. Department of State. He is currently the President of the GeoHealth Section of the American Geophysical Union, Chair of the World Meteorological Organization Research Board Task Team on COVID-19 and climate, meteorological, and environmental factors, and a Commissioner on the City of Baltimore Sustainability Commission.

Speaker Information: 4th Kenji Ishihara Colloquium Series on Earthquake Engineering

Artificial Intelligence Applications in Earthquake Engineering
Speakers and Abstracts

Karianne J. Bergen
Assistant Professor, Brown University
Explainable AI for Seismology: An interpretable convolutional neural network architecture for earthquake detection

Abstract: Geophysicists are increasingly adopting machine learning (ML) techniques to analyze seismic signals. Deep neural networks have emerged as particularly powerful tools for classifying waveforms and identifying seismic phases. These models can learn complex patterns and decision functions with high predictive accuracy. But the complexity and large number of parameters also make these “black box” models difficult to inspect or interpret. The emerging field of explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) is developing tools and techniques to enable ML solutions that can be understood by human analysts. This work presents an interpretable one-dimensional convolutional neural network (CNN) model for earthquake phase detection. In this approach, a simple CNN-based detector (Ross et al.,2018) is modified to learn representative waveforms for classification. These prototype waveforms are used directly by the model to generate the predictions and can be used to explain the model outputs. The new prediction model achieves similar prediction accuracy and has a similar architecture to the original CNN model, but with the added benefit of greater interpretability.

Bio: Dr. Karianne J. Bergen is an Assistant Professor of Data Science and Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences at Brown University and Assistant Professor of Computer Science. Her research interests are in scientific machine learning and trustworthy and explainable AI. Her past work has focused on machine learning and data mining techniques for pattern recognition and discovery in large, complex sensor datasets, including her dissertation research on large-scale earthquake detection in regional seismic networks. Dr. Bergen earned a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Computational and Mathematical Engineering from Stanford University, and a B.Sc. in Applied Mathematics from Brown University. She completed her postdoctoral training at Harvard University where she was a Data Science Initiative Postdoctoral Fellow in Computer Science and Earth and Planetary Sciences. Prior to starting her graduate work, Dr. Bergen worked as a staff data scientist in the Biological and Chemical Defense Systems Group at MIT-Lincoln Laboratory.

Scott J. Brandenberg
Professor, University of California, Los Angeles
Relational Databases to Facilitate Ground Motion and Liquefaction Data Science

Abstract: Preparing, validating, and storing large datasets is often the most complicated aspect of any data science project. This presentation will focus on relational databases that have been assembled to store earthquake ground motion data in California and liquefaction case history data from around the world. The organizational structure of the databases will be briefly discussed, followed by a focus on graphical user interfaces, application programming interfaces, and queryable copies of the database in DesignSafe that allow users to interact with the data. A machine learning algorithm developed to automatically identify soil layers from cone penetration test data will be presented as an example application of relational databases in data science.

Bio: Scott J. Brandenberg is a Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research expertise lies primarily in geotechnical earthquake engineering, with focus on soil-structure interaction, multi-hazard reliability of levee systems, the response of deep foundations to liquefaction-induced lateral spreading, seismic earth pressures acting on earth retention systems, and cyberinfrastructure projects, including development of community databases for liquefaction assessment. He has authored over 100 technical papers, and received the 2022 Thomas A. Middlebrooks Award, 2015 Walter L. Huber Award, 2013 Shamsher Prakash Research Award, and 2010 Arthur Casagrande Professional Development Award. He earned his PhD and MS in 2005 and 2002, respectively, from the University of California, Davis, and his BS in 2000 from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. He served as the Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion in the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering from 2017 through 2020.

Youssef Hashash
Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Deep Learning-Based Site Amplification Models for Central and Eastern North America
with Okan Ilhan

Abstract: This presentation will describe development of deep learning/Artificial neural network (ANN)-based response spectrum (RS) and Fourier amplitude spectrum (FAS) site amplification models for Central and Eastern North America (CENA) using a large-scale simulation database. The amplification database used in model development was produced through large-scale one-dimensional site response analyses for a total of over 3 million analyses. The linear, nonlinear, and total RS and FAS models adopt identical inputs with the corresponding conventional function and produce significantly reduced bias relative to their conventional counter parts. The analogous ANN structure can model all kinds of simulated amplification data (e.g. linear or nonlinear) and is capable of utilizing any site or motion-dependent inputs thought to affect amplification behavior including VS30 and site natural period (Tnat), thus alleviating the need for pre-defined model functional forms for different types of simulation dataset. The deep learning models more accurately represent site-specific amplification compared to conventional relationships.

Bio: Professor Youssef Hashash holds a B.S. (1987), an M.S. (1988) and a Ph.D. (1992) in civil engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He began his career with the PB/MK TEAM in Dallas on the Superconducting Super Collider Project. In 1994 he joined Parsons Brinckerhoff in San Francisco and worked on a number of underground construction projects in the U.S. and Canada including the Boston Central Artery/Tunnel project.

Professor Hashash joined the faculty of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1998. He teaches courses in Geotechnical Engineering, Numerical Modeling in Geomechanics, Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering, Tunneling in Soil and Rock, and Excavation and Support Systems. His research focus includes deep excavations and tunneling in urban areas, earthquake engineering, continuum and discrete element modeling and soil-structure interaction as well as resiliency and sustainability of the built infrastructure. He also works on geotechnical engineering applications of deep learning, artificial intelligence, visualization, augmented reality, imaging and drone technologies. He has published numerous journal articles and is co-inventor on four patents. His research group developed the software program DEEPSOIL that is used worldwide for evaluation of soil response to earthquake shaking.

Professor Hashash is a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), a past president of the Geo-institute of ASCE and has received a number of teaching, university and professional awards including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and the ASCE 2014 Peck medal. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2022.

Qingkai Kong
Research Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Crowdsourcing Earthquake Information Enabled by AI

Abstract: In this talk, our efforts in the area of crowdsourcing earthquake information will be presented. The first part of the talk will be MyShake, a smartphone seismic network to collect earthquake motions and issue earthquake early warning from daily smartphones. A series of machine learning algorithms are utilized to solve some of the challenging problems from distinguish human activities to estimating the earthquake parameters. Second part of the talk will discuss how we built an automated pipeline relying on a transfer learning-based model to extract the damaged buildings images after earthquakes from social media platforms such as Twitter in near real-time. Moreover, with the data science tools available these days, useful public response information from Twitter and Reddit can also be extracted to enhance our post-earthquake information collection.

Bio: Qingkai Kong is currently a research scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where his research is mainly focused on how to combine machine learning with prior physics information in various seismological problems. Before he joined the lab, he was an Assistant Researcher at Berkeley Seismology Lab working between Earth Science and Data Science, where he built the MyShake smartphone seismic network. He also worked as a visiting researcher in the visiting faculty program at Google, Mountain View, to help build the Android Earthquake Alerting System.

Krishna Kumar
Assistant Professor, University of Texas at Austin
Can we trust AI models in Earthquake Engineering?

Abstract: Machine Learning is a ‘black box’ technique – a large number of parameters and complexity of learned representations can prevent researchers from describing what information is relevant to a model’s prediction. This talk will open the black box to explain the logic and reasoning behind ML predictions in earthquake engineering applications. Explainable models include post-hoc techniques, glass-box models, and deriving physics laws from observations. Post-hoc techniques such as LIME and SHAP values assign importance metrics to different parameters in the dataset, thus explaining what features led to the classification or regression. We will present a random forest algorithm developed for classifying liquefiable sites based on CPT data and topological features from the NZ liquefaction database. Although the random forest model has a very high predictive ability of 85%, we reveal that the model learned incorrect physics using explanations (X-AI). We will also explore other post-hoc techniques such as GRADCAM to identify regions of interest in performing a full-waveform inversion. We develop exploratory techniques using Total Variation to look into the black box neural networks. Although post hoc explanations offer some degree of interpretability, merely investigating the cases where the model works may not reveal serious gotchas. Unlike explainable models, Glass box models provide a fully interoperable approach to ML, where one can explicitly see how the model works and follow every step along the way from input to the final output. We create Physics-Informed explainable trees (PiX-trees) for liquefaction classification by developing individual and correlated relationships between factors affecting liquefaction and potential failure. The ultimate goal of explainability is to derive new unknown knowledge or physics laws. We will explore techniques such as knowledge distillation to derive fully explainable models that offer insight into physics. Finally, we will derive known and unknown physics laws that describe the runout dynamics of an earthquake-induced landslide using graph networks.

Bio: Krishna Kumar is an Assistant Professor in Civil, Architecture, and Environmental Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Krishna completed his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 2015 on multi-scale multiphase modeling of granular flows and was supervised by Professor Kenichi Soga. Krishna’s research interest spans high-performance computing, numerical modeling, and explainable AI of natural hazards. He has developed massively parallel micro-/macro-scale numerical methods: Graph Network Simulator, Material Point Method, Lattice Boltzmann – Discrete Element coupling, and Lattice Element method. Krishna was awarded C. S. Desai Award for the best paper on constitutive modeling of geologic materials by the Indian Geotechnical Society.

Youzuo Lin
Staff Scientist, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Spatio-Temporal Graph Convolutional Networks for Earthquake Source Characterization

Abstract: Accurate earthquake location and magnitude estimation play critical roles in seismology. Recent deep learning frameworks have produced encouraging results on various seismological tasks (e.g., earthquake detection, phase picking, seismic classification, and earthquake early warning). Most existing machine learning earthquake location methods utilize waveform information from a single station. However, multiple stations contain more complete information for earthquake source characterization. Inspired by recent successes in applying graph neural networks in graph-structured data, we develop a Spatio-Temporal Graph Convolutional Neural Network (STGCN) for estimating earthquake locations and magnitudes. Our graph neural network leverages geographical and waveform information from multiple stations to construct graphs automatically and dynamically by an adaptive feature integration process. Given input waveforms collected from multiple stations, the neural network constructs different graphs and fuses spatial-temporal consistency effectively from various stations based on graphs’ edges. Using a recent graph neural network and a fully convolutional neural network as baselines, we apply STGCN to earthquakes cataloged by Southern California Seismic Network from 2000 to 2019 and induced earthquakes collected in Oklahoma from 2014 to 2015. STGCN yields more accurate earthquake locations than those obtained by the baseline models and performs comparably in terms of depth and magnitude prediction, though the ability to predict depth and magnitude remains weak for all tested models. Our work demonstrates the potential of using graph neural networks and multiple stations for better automatic estimation of earthquake epicenters.

Bio: Youzuo Lin is a staff scientist and the Team Leader for the Sensor and Signatures Team at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). His research interests include physics-informed machine learning, time series analysis, seismic inversion, and computational methods for solving ill-posed inverse problems. Particularly, he has worked on a wide spectrum of applications including Earthquake detection and monitoring, CO2 storage, hydrology inverse modeling, and ultrasound tomography for breast cancer detection. He has been a co-inventor on a couple of U.S. patents about ultrasound imaging techniques. He has published more than 70+ articles in top journals and conferences. Dr. Lin is an Associate Editor of Machine Learning: Science and Technology and co-edited the 2021 Special Issue in IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems and the 2019 Special Issue in Journal of Interpretation: Machine Learning in Seismic Data Analysis. Dr. Lin holds a Ph.D. degree in Applied and Computational Mathematics from Arizona State University.

Jorge Macedo
Assistant Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology
Machine learning-based procedures for estimating seismically-induced slope displacements

Abstract: The assessment of the seismic performance of slope systems often relies on estimating the amount of seismically-induced slope displacements (D) using semiempirical models. These models take as inputs the slope properties and ground motion intensity measures (IMs) to provide D estimates that are used in engineering design. However, most of the available models have been developed for regions affected by shallow crustal seismicity. Comparatively, the available models for subduction tectonic settings are scarce. Moreover, most existing models have been developed using traditional statistical methods that do not take full advantage of modern data-driven approaches. This presentation will discuss the development of new machine learning (ML) based D models applicable to shallow crustal and subduction earthquake zones (considering both interface and intraslab mechanisms). The performance of the developed ML-based models is compared in terms of predictive performance, model trends, and computational cost for training. Lastly, the use of the developed models in performance-based earthquake engineering will also be briefly discussed.

Bio: Dr. Jorge Macedo, Ph.D., P.E., is an Assistant Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he joined the faculty in 2018. Dr. Macedo practiced as a geotechnical tailings engineer for six years (2008-2013), working on major mining and earthquake engineering projects in Peru, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil from conception to detailed engineering design, and he holds P.E licenses in California and Peru. Dr. Macedo’s main research areas are geotechnical earthquake engineering, mining geotechnics, and data-driven risk engineering applied to multi-hazards. He received the prestigious 2022 United States National Science Foundation CAREER award for his work at the convergence of performance-based engineering, tailings geotechnics, and data science. Dr. Macedo is also the founder and chair of the TAILENG (TAilings and IndustriaL waste ENGineering) center, which works on improving the resilience of infrastructure in the mining and power industries.

Hiroyuki Miura
Associate Professor, Hiroshima University
Application of AI Technology for Estimating Site Amplification Factor from Microtremor H/V Spectral Ratio
coauthored with Da Pan

Abstract: Recent Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies including deep neural network-based learning have been expanded to various fields not only for image and sound recognitions but also for earthquake and structural engineering issues. This study introduces an application of deep neural network for automatically estimating site amplification factor of seismic wave (S-wave) in frequency domain from microtremor data. The proposed model was developed from observed earthquake and microtremor data at the seismic stations in Chugoku district, western Japan. The model can automatically produce the site amplification factor from microtremor horizontal-to-vertical (H/V) spectral ratio without external investigation such as geophysical exploration and long-term seismic observation. The accuracies and applicability of the method are also discussed in the presentation.

Bio:

Education:
Doctor of Engineering, Department of Built Environment, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan (2004)
Master of Engineering, Department of Built Environment, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan (2001)
Bachelor of Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan (1999)

Experience:
2004.4-2007.9, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Tokyo Institute of Technology
2007.10-2012.10, Assistant Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology
2012.10-Present, Associate Professor, Hiroshima University

Research Interests:
Evaluation of ground motion characteristics based on strong motion and mictotremor data
Earthquake damage assessment of buildings
Spatial data analysis for urban disaster mitigation planning

Awards:
Young Researcher Award by Japan Association for Earthquake Engineering (JAEE), 2008
Excellent Presentation Award in JAEE Annual Meeting, 2009
Excellent Presentation Award in JAEE Annual Meeting, 2011
Outstanding Paper Award by Institute of Social Safety Science (ISSS), 2016.
Outstanding Paper Award by Institute of Social Safety Science (ISSS), 2018.

Professional Affiliations:
Architectural Institute of Japan (AIJ), Japan Association for Earthquake Engineering (JAEE), The Seismological Society of Japan (SSJ), Institute of Social Safety Science (ISSS), Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI), Seismological Society of America (SSA)

Principle Publications selected
Peer-reviewed articles (Related to Artificial Intelligence and Earthquake Engineering):

Pan, D., Miura, H., Kanno, T., Shigefuji, Abiru, T.: Deep Neural Network-based Estimation of Site Amplification Factor from Microtremor H/V Spectral Ratio, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1785/0120210300 .
Tumurbaatar, Z., Miura, H., Tsamba, T.: Development of Building Inventory Data in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia for Seismic Loss Estimation, ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 11(1), 26, 2021, https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi11010026 .
Adriano, B., Yokoya, N., Xia, J., Miura, H., Liu, W., Matsuoka, M. and Koshimura, S.: Learning from Multimodal and Multitemporal Earth Observation Data for Building Damage Mapping, ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Vol.175, pp.132-143, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2021.02.016 .
Miura, H., Aridome, T. and Matsuoka, M.: Deep Learning-based Identification of Collapsed, Non-collapsed and Blue Tarp-Covered Buildings from Post-disaster Aerial Images, Remote Sensing, Vol.20, No. 12, 1924, 2020, https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12121924 .
Miura, H., Okamura, T., Matsuoka, M., Leal, M., Garcia, H. and Pulido, N.: Empirical Models for Surface and Body Wave Amplifications of Response Spectra in the Bogotá Basin, Colombia, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol.109, No.3, pp.987-1004, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1785/0120180154 .
Miura, H., Fujita, H., Than, K. S. S. and Hibino, Y.: Estimation of Site Response during the 2016 Chauk, Myanmar Earthquake Based on Microtremor-derived S-wave Velocity Structures, Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, Vol.126, 105781, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2019.105781 .
Miura, H., Midorikawa, S. and Matsuoka, M.: Building Damage Assessment Using High-Resolution Satellite SAR Images of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, Earthquake Spectra, Vol.32, No.1, pp.591-610, 2016.
Midorikawa, S., Yamanaka, H., Chimoto, K., Riddell, R., Miura, H. and Saguchi, K.: Evaluation of Site Effects on Strong Ground Motion Records in Concepcion during the 2010 Maule, Chile Earthquake, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol.104, No.5, pp.2503-2511, 2014.
Miura, H., Midorikawa, S. and Kerle, N.: Detection of Building Damage Areas of the 2006 Central Java, Indonesia Earthquake through Digital Analysis of Optical Satellite Images, Earthquake Spectra, Vol.29, No.2, pp.453-473, 2013.
Stewart, J. P., Midorikawa, S., Graves, R. W., Khodaverdi, K., Kishida, T., Miura, H., Bozorgnia, Y. and Campbell, K. W.: Implication of Mw 9.0 Tohoku-oki Japan Earthquake for Ground Motion Scaling with Source, Path, and Site Parameters, Earthquake Spectra, Vol.29, No.S1, pp.S1-S21, 2013.
Midorikawa, S., Miura, H. and Atsumi, T.: Strong Motion Records of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Its Attenuation Characteristics, Journal of Disaster Research, Vol.7, No.6, pp.695-700, 2012.
Miura, H., Midorikawa, S., Fujimoto, K., Pacheco, B. M., and Yamanaka, H.: Earthquake Damage Estimation in Metro Manila, Philippines Based on Seismic Performance of Buildings Evaluated by Local Experts’ Judgments, Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, Vo.28, No.10-11, pp.764-777, 2008.
Miura, H. and Midorikawa, S.: Updating GIS Building Inventory Data Using High-Resolution Satellite Images for Earthquake Damage Assessment: Application to Metro Manila, Philippines, Earthquake Spectra, Vol.22, No.1, pp.151-168, 2006.

Jamie E. Padgett
Stanley C. Moore Endowed Professor and Department Chair, Rice University
Facilitating seismic risk and resilience analysis in heterogenous and multi-scale systems
coauthored with Raul Rincon

Abstract: The exposure of the built environment to aging, deterioration effects and shifts in demands combined with the occurrence of extreme events, such as earthquakes, poses unique challenges to modelers, designers, and managers of structures and infrastructure systems, and the communities that depend upon their effective functioning. The fields of earthquake risk and resilience engineering aim to support such endeavors and necessarily benefit from the integration different methods and perspectives. Artificial intelligence (AI) has been one of the cross-disciplinary fields that has permeated the earthquake engineering (EE) community in the most recent decade. Specific to AI, the machine learning (ML) field introduces capabilities for modeling, analyzing, visualizing and discovering different aspects of the built environment and its performance when subjected to natural hazards that otherwise would be challenging to achieve. In this talk we discuss how evolving developments in ML have transformed the EE community, and offer illustrative examples of research performed, and currently ongoing, in our research lab. As an example, we present the use of supervised ML for uncertainty propagation and fragility estimation in settings where the number and variety of parameters, the randomness in these parameters, and the consideration of time-varying characteristics would lead to infeasible (or very expensive) schemes if using traditional approaches. Beyond efficiency, supervised and unsupervised methods (and combinations of them) are presented herein as mechanisms for discovering the structure and seismic demand parameters that most contribute to the seismic performance and post-event functionality of structural components, structural systems, and larger infrastructure systems. Hence, we demonstrate how advances in ML and its application facilitate not only transformative research but also pave a path to support practical design, management and community resilience planning.

Bio: Jamie E. Padgett is the Stanley C. Moore Endowed Professor and Department Chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice University in Houston, TX. Padgett is a structural engineer with a passion for engineering for social good. Her research is focused on multi-hazard risk and resilience modeling of structures and infrastructure systems, and understanding their impacts on communities. Her work develops new methods to quantify and improve the performance of infrastructure exposed to natural hazards such as earthquakes, hurricanes and flooding. Padgett’s research has applications to a range of systems, including bridges, tank farms, energy and industrial facilities, and intermodal transportation systems. She has published over 250 articles in journals or archived conference proceedings in the general area of structural fragility, life-cycle assessment, and infrastructure resilience. Dr. Padgett has received several prestigious awards and recognitions including the Executive Leadership in Academic Technology, Engineering and Science (ELATES) Fellowship (2021-2022); Engineering Mechanics Institute (EMI) Objective Resilience Distinguished Lecturer (2019); the American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE) Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize (2017); and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award (2011). She is a Fellow of ASCE’s Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) and the founding Chair of its technical committee on Multiple Hazard Mitigation. Among other advisory and professional service roles, Padgett serves on Editorial Boards for such journals as the ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering, Natural Hazards Review, and Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics. Padgett serves in leadership roles within several large national research efforts including the NIST Center of Excellence for Risk-based Resilience Planning, the NSF Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) Cyberinfrastructure “DesignSafe-CI”, and the Severe Storm Prediction Education and Evacuation from Disasters (SSPEED) Center. She is the Faculty Director of the inaugural Gulf Scholars Program at Rice University funded by NASEM’s Gulf Research Program, and a Fellow of Rice’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research.

Adrian Rodriguez-Marek
Professor, Virginia Tech
Use of Machine Learning Tools to Evaluate Site Terms in Ground Motion Models
coauthored with Mohsen Zaker Esteghamati, Balakumar Anbazhagan, and Albert R. Kottke

Abstract: This study develops a data-driven framework to improve the prediction of site amplification in ground motion models using horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratios (HVSR) proxies. Three machine learning algorithms (multiple regression, random forest, and support vector machine) were implemented in an automated data-driven workflow that included feature selection (filter-based, wrapper-based, and embedded methods), hyperparameter tuning, and cross-validation modules. The site-to-site variability of resultant data-driven models was then compared to a Fourier Amplitude Spectrum baseline ground motion model. In addition, sensitivity analysis on framework choices was carried out. The results show that data-driven models with HVSR proxies derived from strong motion data provide lower site-to-site variability than conventional GMM. The best performing data-driven model (i.e., support vector machines) showed an average of 24.1% (and up to 50.8 %) lower site-to-site variability than the baseline ground motion model, where the difference was more significant at lower frequencies. The use of noise-based HVSR measures also showed promise, but the improvements over traditional proxy-based approaches were not as marked.

Bio: Click here to learn about Dr. Rodriguez-Marek.

Rodrigo Silva-Lopez and Jack Baker
Ph.D. Candidate, Stanford University
Professor, Stanford University
Deep learning-based retrofitting and seismic risk assessment of road networks

Abstract: Seismic risk assessment of road systems involves computationally expensive traffic simulations to evaluate the system’s performance. To accelerate this process, we developed a neural network surrogate model that allows rapid and accurate estimation of changes in traffic performance metrics due to bridge damage. In addition to the neural network, a modified version of the Local Interpretable Model-Agnostic Explanation (LIME) is proposed as a retrofitting strategy that minimizes earthquakes’ impact on the system. The modified version (LIME-TI) uses Traffic Impacts and rates of occurrence to aggregate the importance of individual damage realizations during the computation of variable importance. Using the San Francisco Bay Area Road network as a testbed, we verified that the neural network accurately predicts the system’s performance while taking five orders of magnitude less time to compute traffic metrics. Moreover, the proposed LIME-TI retrofitting strategy is superior to others (such as traffic volume or vulnerability) in identifying bridges whose retrofit effectively improves network performance.

Bio: Rodrigo Silva-Lopez is a Ph.D. Candidate at Stanford University. His research focuses on improving the seismic resilience of road networks by developing and implementing machine learning and optimization techniques. In addition, his work has aimed at exploring the community impacts of road network disruption to inform decision-makers about broader implications of potential mitigation actions.

Click here to learn about Dr. Jack Baker.

Aidin Tamhidi and Yousef Bozorgnia
Ph.D. Candidate, University of California, Los Angeles
Professor, University of California, Los Angeles
Artificial Intelligence and Earthquake Engineering; Application for Seismic Performance of Soft-Story Buildings

Abstract: This study outlines a methodology for seismic performance quantification and rapid generation of structural computer models for an inventory of soft, weak, and open-front (SWOF) story buildings using Artificial Intelligence (AI) Neural Networks. Los Angeles city serves as a testing ground for our framework, as it contains around 13,500 SWOF structures. After a significant earthquake, the conventional damage assessment of such buildings is undertaken visually, which might take months. Consequently, the capacity to conduct quick post-earthquake structural health assessments is an essential skill. To achieve this, it is necessary to characterize computer structural model for target buildings using inventories of archetype models established based on structural properties. We offer a trained Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model capable of classifying the first-story wall layout and number of stories for the target buildings. The building identification evaluation of the proposed CNN model shows acceptable accuracies in comparison with the human detection error. Furthermore, the CNN’s gradient-weighted class activation maps indicate the capacity to recognize wall opening patterns corresponding to the first-story wall layouts. The resultant estimates of the proposed CNN model can be combined with additional data from other sources, such as satellite photos or OpenStreet map’s input data, to determine the closest archetypal structural model, enabling quick assessment of post-earthquake structural damage. Pre-event developed computer models of the identified buildings are assigned to each building and excited by generated site-specific time histories to evaluate seismic performance of a large class of buildings in a real-time manner after an earthquake.

Bio: Aidin Tamhidi is a Ph.D. candidate in Structural and Earthquake Engineering at University of California, Los Angeles. He received his B.Sc. in Civil and Environmental Engineering and M.Sc. in Structural Engineering both from Sharif University of Technology (Iran). His research is about Next-Generation Earthquake Field Data Measurements and their Use to Assess Earthquake Performance of Soft-Story Buildings. He is conducting his research under the supervision of Professor Yousef Bozorgnia.

Click here to learn about Dr. Yousef Bozorgnia.

San Diego Regional Chapter

Earthquake Engineering Research Institute

ASCE EERI September 2024 Joint Dinner Meeting

Speaker Information: 6th Kenji Ishihara Colloquium Series on Earthquake Engineering

6th Kenji Ishihara Colloquium Series on Earthquake Engineering

6th Kenji Ishihara Colloquium Series on Earthquake Engineering

Session 1: Punctuated Resilience, Climate Change, and Bio-Geotechnics

Session 2: Next-Generation Liquefaction Modeling of Liquefaction Triggering and Surface Manifestation

Speaker Information: 5th Kenji Ishihara Colloquium Series on Earthquake Engineering

5th Kenji Ishihara Colloquium Series on Earthquake Engineering

SDXEAA & EERI PE Seismic Design Workshop

ASCE EERI Joint Luncheon 2023

Speaker Information: 4th Kenji Ishihara Colloquium Series on Earthquake Engineering

Speaker Information: 4th Kenji Ishihara Colloquium Series on Earthquake Engineering

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