CEE Seminar: Advancements in Seismic Hazard Research: Collaborative Efforts and Their Impacts on Earthquake Engineering

Abstract: A few large initiatives have shaped the direction of seismic hazard research, demonstrating the transformative impact of collaborative approaches on earthquake engineering and related fields. This seminar will highlight three large, impactful and community-based research programs: the NGA earthquake ground motion modeling research series; the fault displacement hazard initiative; and the seismic risk analysis of natural gas transmission pipelines. These projects represent major advancements in understanding and quantifying seismic hazards for engineering applications. In addition to these large-scale efforts, the seminar will touch on two smaller yet highly impactful ongoing research projects: addressing seismic ground motion issues for inelastic structural response and revising seismic design code to incorporate the effects of vertical ground motions.

Bio: Yousef Bozorgnia is a professor at UCLA Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, and the past and founding director of Natural Hazards Risk and Resiliency Research Center (NHR3). Bozorgnia’s decades of experience and expertise includes earthquake engineering and ground motion hazard, with emphasis on multidisciplinary aspects of earthquake science and engineering. He has extensively published scientific papers on earthquake ground motion models, seismic hazard analysis and earthquake engineering.  Bozorgnia has been a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) since 1998, and the principal investigator of multiple phases of the NGA seismic hazard research programs. In 2019, EERI, COSMOS and SSA jointly awarded Bozorgnia with the Bruce Bolt Medal for his extensive contributions to seismic hazard analysis and earthquake engineering. In 2023, Bozorgnia was awarded the UCLA Public Impact Research Award for his decades of impactful research contributions.