CEE Seminar: Computational Science in Service of Natural Hazards Engineering - Applications, Challenges, Opportunities

Abstract: Advances in automated metadata harvesting and development of data-driven models, and ubiquity of high-performance computing resources are enabling the quantification of risks from natural hazards at unprecedentedly large spatial scales and fine-resolutions simultaneously. As true resilience against natural hazards can only be achieved at community/regional scales, risk assessment studies must match this requirement and adopt such multiscale approaches. In this presentation, I will offer our research group's efforts on earthquake, hurricanes and wildfires and delineate some of the essential elements and features of regional risk assessment workflows.

Bio: Ertugrul Taciroglu earned a bachelor's degree in 1993 from Istanbul Technical University, and master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 1995 and 1998, respectively. After a stint at the Center for Simulation of Advanced Rockets (UIUC) as a postdoctoral research associate, he joined the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department at UCLA in 2001. His research interests span the disciplines of theoretical & applied mechanics, and structural & geotechnical earthquake engineering. He is currently conducting projects on regional natural hazard risk assessment of civil infrastructure, structural health and performance monitoring, and soil-structure interaction. Taciroglu is the recipient of a 2006 National Science Foundation CAREER award, and the 2011 Walter Huber Prize of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). He was elected to become a fellow of the ASCE Engineering Mechanics Institute (EMI) in 2015 and has served on its Board of Governors. He is the inaugural chief editor of the ASCE Open: The Multidisciplinary Journal of Civil Engineering, and serves on the editorial boards of several journals including Earthquake Spectra, Soil Dynamics & Earthquake Engineering, and Structural Control & Health Monitoring.