EPICentre Encounters: Recent advances and perspectives in multi-hazard risk and resilience

Professor Dilanthi Amaratunga

Professor of Disaster Risk Management at University of Huddersfield, UK

Dilanthi Amaratunga is a Professor of Disaster Risk Management at the University of Huddersfield, UK. She is a leading expert in disaster resilience with an international reputation. She is the Editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, a key journal to promote research and scholarly activity that examines the role of building and construction to anticipate and respond to unexpected events that damage or destroy the built environment. She led the international peer review panel of the UN Global Assessment Report input papers in 2015. She is a member of the Steering Committee of the UNISDR "Making Cities Resilient" Campaign and one of the 2 formally appointed Campaign Advocate. She has also been appointed by the UNISDR as the Working Group Leader of the Words into action on Accountability and Governance. Dilanthi also has lead and chaired a large number of international conferences, demonstrating her role as a leader and as a conduit for international collaboration and engagement. To date, Dilanthi has published over 375 peer reviewed articles and delivered over 60 invited presentations around the world.

Professor Andrea Dall'Asta

Professor at University of Camerino, Italy

Andrea Dall’Asta is Professor of Structural Engineering at the School of Architecture and Design of the University of Camerino, Italy. His research interests focus on the seismic reliability and structural resilience of new and existing structures including innovative solutions. Amongst others, his research covers the use of passive dissipative devices (e.g., high damping rubber and BRB devices) for the control of the seismic response of bridge and existing buildings; the development of innovative structural seismic resilient systems and the uncertainty propagation and probabilistic assessment of the seismic risk.

In these and other topics, Prof. Dall’Asta has authored and co-authored more than 250 papers in International journals and conference proceedings. During his career, Andrea Dall’Asta coordinated and collaborated within several national and international research and design projects interacting with research groups in Europe, US, Asia and Australia.

He has also participated in various activities related to international code development and to committees formed by industry and other professional institutions/learned societies. Currently, since March 2014, he is Member of CEN-TC 250/SC 3/WG 13 and CEN-TC 250/SC 4/WG 3 focusing on the design of steel-concrete composite structures and of bridges and Vice-chairman of the National Committee for Standardization Sub-Commission on Steel and Concrete composite structure.

In addition, Dall’Asta has also organized or headed committees on various local and international conferences and is currently the coordinator for the organization of the National Italian Conference of Earthquake Engineering (ANIDIS) of September 2019.

Dr Pierre Gehl

Research Engineer at BRGM - French Geological Survey

Dr Pierre Gehl, earthquake engineering expert at BRGM (French Geological Survey) since 2006, develops research activities mainly on systemic risk and risk to critical infrastructure. A graduate of Ecole Centrale Paris with a Master’s in Environmental Sciences (2005), Dr. Gehl has completed his PhD in Civil Engineering at University College London (UK, 2016), on the multi-risk vulnerability assessment of road infrastructure, as part of the FP7 INFRARISK project (2013-2016 – www.infrarisk-fp7.eu). His current work at BRGM covers the development of innovative methods for systemic risk and resilience analyses, including the physical and functional reliability assessment of exposed assets and the application of state-of-the-art probabilistic tools (e.g., Bayesian Networks). Dr. Gehl was the BRGM PI for FP7 project SYNER-G (2009-2013 – www.syner-g.eu), a pioneering project on the seismic systemic vulnerability in Europe, where he was involved in the development of a toolbox for the simulation of systemic risk scenarios.

Professor Fatemah Jalayer

Associate Professor, Department of Structures for Engineering and Architecture at University of Naples Federico II, Italy

Prof Fatemeh Jalayer has joined the Department of Structural Engineering at University of Naples in 2006. Her research area is in the application of probabilistic methods to civil engineering problems. Fatemeh is focusing on areas such as, probabilistic seismic risk assessment, time-dependent risk assessment, and probabilistic seismic hazard analysis. She has also been actively involved in portfolio vulnerability and risk assessment for hydro-geological and climate-related hazards. She has completed her Ph.D. in Structural Engineering, in March 2003 at Stanford University. Her dissertation is entitled “Direct Probabilistic Seismic Analysis: Implementing Non-linear Dynamic Assessments”, under the supervision of the late Professor C. Allin Cornell. Fatemeh is a co-recipient of the 2003 Normal Medal of American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and has been a George Housner Fellow at California Institute of Technology (Caltech). 

Fatemeh is serving on the editorial board of the Scientific Reports, a Nature Group Publication and Journal of Risk and Uncertainty Analysis Part A and Part B (ASCE). She has been the WP leader in projects “Integrated and sustainable methods and technologies for adaptation and security of urban systems (METROPOLIS)” and “Methods and Technologies for Managing the Risk of Transportation Infrastructures (STRIT)” in the framework of Italian National Operative Projects. Fatemeh has been actively involved in the EC-FP7 project “Climate Change and Urban Vulnerability in Africa (CLUVA)” in the quality of the coordinator of activities for case-study city Dar Es Salaam. She is the author and co-author of more than 120 publications on peer-reviewed international journals and conferences.
 

Dr Evangelos Ntontis

Lecturer in Social Psychology at School of Psychology, Politics, and Sociology at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK

I am a lecturer in social psychology at the School of Psychology, Politics, and Sociology at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK. Before that, I did my PhD at the School of Psychology of the University of Sussex. I am interested in collective behaviour and how it can be affected by our group identities. In my most recent research I have explored the processes through which groups emerge during disasters and how they operate in the post-disaster period. I am also interested in how social psychological knowledge about collective behaviour can inform policy and practice related to community resilience in climate change and disasters. I also have a long-standing interest in the interplay between rhetoric, group identity and social issues. Such research has explored for example the mobilization rhetoric of social movements (e.g. anti-abortion activism and neo-Nazism), discursive analyses of community resilience in official guidance, toxic masculinity and sexism. For my research I use a range of qualitative and quantitative types of data and methods. 

Professor Andres Winston C. Oreta

Professor at De La Salle University, Philippines

Professor Andres Winston C. Oreta is a professor at the Department of Civil Engineering (Structural Engineering Division), De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines. He served as consultant for UNISDR in the development of the concept and website for the “One Million Safe Schools and Hospitals Campaign.” He organized a Newton Workshop on “Localising Strategies for Making Cities Resilient to Disasters” with University of Huddersfield in Manila, Philippines. He has also collaborative research projects with University College of London related to resilience of schools to multi-hazards. He has also organized or headed committees on various local and international conferences such as the AUN/SEED-Net Regional Conference on Natural Disasters (2015), Conferences organized by the Association of Structural Engineers of the Philippines (ASEP) including the Asia Conference on Earthquake Engineering, and the International Conference on CE Education in 2013. He is the chair of the Philippine Group of the International Association for Bridge & Structural Engineering (IABSE).

Dr Jair Torres

Consultant, Unit for Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience at UNESCO

Dr Jair Torres has been a consultant for the Unit for Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience of UNESCO in Paris since more than ten years. He is a PhD candidate at the understanding and Managing Extremes Graduate School of the University School for Advanced Studies IUSS in Pavia, Italy. He acquired his master’s degree on Development Studies at the University of Paris III, Sorbonne Nouvelle and his bachelor diploma in Finances and International Relations at the Externado University of Colombia. Mr Torres has been deeply involved in DRR and Resilience activities in UNESCO since September 2006. He has been working in the International Hydrological Programme and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. He advises and supports the Unit for Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience in the international activities related to the scientific, educational and policy aspects of natural hazards leading to disaster. He has been involved in activities concerning school safety, early warning systems, and promotion of scientific cooperation and capacity building for disaster reduction. Among others, he has been responsible for the International Platform for Earthquake Early Warning Systems, the UNESCO’s VISUS Methodology for Assessing School Facilities and the UNESCO Programme for Measuring Resilience. He has been playing an active role in the design and implementation of the International Platform for Reducing Earthquake Disasters, the programme for Reducing Earthquake Losses and the International Network for Multi-hazard Early Warning Systems. For the last two years, he has been chairing the Global Alliance for Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience in the Education Sector.

Professor Liz Varga

Professor Liz Varga is leading the Infrastructure Systems Institute in the Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering department, UCL.  She is a complexity scientist passionate about achieving positive outcomes for society from engineered systems. She was co-director of the ENCORE project which established a network in engineering complexity resilience and made a major contribution to the academic investigations of this project.  Liz is a member of the UK Collaboratorium for Research on Infrastructure and Cities (UKCRIC) and a co-investigator for the Data Analytics Facility for National Infrastructure.  She was previously a co-investigator for the International Centre for Infrastructure Futures which examined interdependencies in infrastructure systems, particularly in respect of resilience. Resilience forms a key component of her work on complex infrastructure systems, together with innovation and sustainability.

Dr Gordon Woo

Scientist and Risk Analyst at University College London

Dr Gordon Woo specializes in the assessment and management of extreme risks, both natural and man-made.  As both a scientist and a risk analyst, he bridges the knowledge gap between hazard experts and risk stakeholders.  Recent contributions in earthquake risk mitigation have been a study of the cost-effectiveness of a Californian earthquake early warning system, and an analysis of public engagement in operational earthquake forecasting.

He is the author of the two books, 'The Mathematics of Natural Catastrophes', published by Imperial College Press in 1999, and 'Calculating Catastrophe', published by Imperial College Press for the tenth anniversary of 9/11.   Dr. Woo was a top mathematics graduate at Cambridge University, completed his PhD at MIT as a Kennedy Scholar, and was a member of the Harvard Society of Fellows.   He is currently an adjunct professor at NTU, Singapore, as well as a visiting professor at University College London.