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Felipe obtained his Civil Engineer degree from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC) in 2013. With a diploma on Construction Engineering and Management, he developed a voluntary undergraduate research project evaluating the use of Chilean fly ash, a by-product of coal-fired power plants, to produce greener cements and concrete. For this work, Felipe received the DICTUC Award to the Development of Chile as the best graduation document of the 2013 Engineering class at PUC, and a distinction to the best thesis from the Department of Construction Engineering and Management.
In 2014, Felipe joined the National Research Center for Integrated Natural Disasters Management (CIGIDEN) as a research engineer. There, he worked in the research line of Vulnerability and Risk Assessment of Physical and Social Systems contributing to different research projects related to understanding exposure of residential structures, and vulnerability and risk of and critical infrastructure and lifelines. In 2015 he led one of CIGIDEN's reconnaissance teams assessing the infrastructure performance and damage after the 2015 Illapel earthquake and tsunami in Chile.
During 2016 he acted as the Technical Coordinator of the National Committee of Research, Development, and Innovation (R&D+i) for Natural Disaster Resilience (CREDEN). This Committee, coordinated by the National Council of Innovation for the Development, produced the Chilean strategy to improve the resilience of the communities through R&D+i. During 2017, he was the Executive Director of the project for the design of the National Institute of R&D+i for Natural Disaster Resilience (ITReND), which is expected to begin functioning in 2018 to implement CREDEN's strategy.
In September 2017 he started his Masters of Research (MRes) studies at the Centre for Urban Sustainability and Resilience (USAR) at UCL, joining EPICentre to develop his thesis. There, under the supervision of Prof. Tiziana Rossetto and Dr. John Twigg, he worked on understanding the dynamics of seismic exposure in the last 25 years for the city of Santiago, Chile. Building on this, Felipe is conducting his PhD research since February 2018 assessing the impact of urban planning decisions in the evolution of seismic risk.
Keywords: Urban planning decisions, seismic risk, exposure modelling