Upcoming Seminars
Wildfire Engineering: Integrating Models with Data to Advance Solutions
May 21, 2025 - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Hamed Ebrahimian
Wildland fires are a critical part of a healthy ecosystem. However, the rapid expansion of the wildland-urban interface, coupled with climate change and human activities, has dramatically increased wildfire hazards in recent decades. Today, wildfires rank among the most significant natural threats to social, economic, ecological, and infrastructure systems. This presentation introduces the wildfire challenge to the engineering community and highlights our team’s recent advancements in wildfire simulation, data analysis, and risk assessment.
Simulating wildfires is a complex, multi-physics, and multi-scale process essential for both pre-fire risk assessment and active-fire emergency response. This presentation provides an overview of state-of-the-art wildland fire modeling techniques, emphasizing our contributions to fuel characterization and modeling fire spotting. To address the challenges of collecting observational wildfire data, we have developed a deep learning method that enhances the spatial resolution of satellite data. This new development supports the integration of computational models and data, advancing capabilities for wildfire digital twinning and enabling near real-time wildfire monitoring for emergency response.
Additionally, the presentation outlines the development of a probabilistic wildfire risk assessment framework, inspired by decades of progress in earthquake risk engineering. This framework accounts for uncertainties across different systems to quantify wildfire risk as the probability of loss. Finally, we explore key technical challenges in wildfire monitoring, simulation, and data assimilation and present a forward-looking vision for wildfire engineering research. The objective is to engage the engineering community in addressing this critical and evolving challenge through innovative contributions.
Past Seminars
31
How can humanists and scientists work together in an inevitable conference of disciplines?
Speaker: Lei Liang
Prof. Liang will explore means for humanists, engineers and scientists to work together in an inevitable conference of disciplines and what creative listening can offer us as a unique way for learning.
Will Natural Fibers Replace Glass and Polymeric Fibers in Advanced Composites?
January 24, 2024 - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Daniel Walczyk
Natural Fibers, particularly hemp and flax, are proposed by many materials researchers as sustainable alternatives to glass and polymeric fibers for reinforcement in advanced composites. Interestingly, natural fibers have been used for millennia in structural applications and are just now experiencing a rediscovery. In this seminar, Dr.
Seismic Risk Assessment and Mitigation Strategies
January 22, 2024 - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Laura Gioiella
The focus of this presentation revolves around the Seismic risk assessment and mitigation strategies that are mainly influenced by the consciousness that Italy is a territory prone to seismic hazard and characterized by an ancient cultural heritage. Nevertheless, it is quite frequent that retrofit interventions are promoted only after the occurrence of natural hazards, therefore operating in reaction terms rather than prevention terms.
Imaging the Underworld: Digital Documentation of Subterranean Environments
January 17, 2024 - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Domnique Rissolo
The often complex, multilevel morphologies of caves and tunnels offer ideal test environments for the combination of SLAM-based mobile LiDAR systems and photogrammetry for the documentation and mapping of subterranean archaeological sites. Recent research has involved systematic scanning of caves and architectural tunnels in Belize and on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.
Academy Museum of Motion Pictures – Innovative and Unprecedented Structural Solutions
December 04, 2023 - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Andy Rastetter
Opened in September of 2021, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures provides a state-of-the-art home for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The adaptive re-use project transforms the historic May Company Building (renamed Saban Building), a 1939 Art Deco department store, into more than 50,000-sf of galleries and archives, and introduces a soaring spherical addition housing the 1000-seat David Geffen Theater and a dramatic roof terrace set beneath a glass dome.
The Art and Science of Decision Making and its Application to Lifecycle Asset Management
November 29, 2023 - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Dr. Mayank Chadha
With growing urbanization, aging infrastructure in the developed world, and the rapid expansion of infrastructure portfolios in developing countries, there is a demand for a modern and novel asset management framework. This framework should be underpinned by the science of SHM, empowered by digital technology and artificial intelligence. It must be capable of addressing the inherent uncertainties in complex systems and utilize state-of-the-art decision-making capabilities to ensure the seamless operation and safety of asset portfolios.
A Blessing and a Curse: The History and Application of The Building Code
November 27, 2023 - 12:00 pm
Speaker: John M. Hochwalt, S.E.
In practice, the building code can be a blessing – representing a treasury of wisdom about the design, construction, and performance of buildings. It can also be a curse – confusing to understand, challenging to apply and restricting of innovation. Why is this so? Is there a better way?
Our exploration of the history and application of the building code will start with considering the how engineers think about the building code through a series of metaphors, and then proceed to consider the following questions:
A Brief Overview of Single Family Home Design and Residential Structural Engineering
November 15, 2023 - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Nicholas Martignetti and Richard J. Zabel
Mulhern + Kulp is a full-service structural engineering consulting firm, providing services to architects, builders, and developers nationwide. As one of the largest firms in the residential industry, they specialize in wood framed design, particularly single-family homes and townhomes. The speakers will review some general wood construction knowledge, go over construction roles and the people involved, outline the design services provided by Mulhern + Kulp, and discuss the importance of structural engineering in residential design.
San Diego Airport Terminal 1 Design and Base Isolation Seismic Retrofit of LA County Headquarters
November 13, 2023 - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Matthew Skokan, Robert Randall, and Doug Noteware
This seminar will focus on the technical aspects of two challenging projects designed by Saiful Bouquet. The first is the $2.7 billion San Diego International Airport Terminal 1 Replacement Project, in which Saiful Bouquet designed the foundation systems for the building as well as for the sequential demolition of the existing Terminal 1 structure, and relocation and seismic strengthening of a historic hangar building. The new Terminal 1 structure is founded on an auger cast pile (ACP) system.
The Collapse of the Morandi - One of the Most “Iconic” Italian Bridges: Chronicle of a Death Foretold?
November 08, 2023 - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Prof. Alessandro Palermo
On 14 August 2018, the Ponte Morandi, part of the Polcevera Viaduct in Genoa, Italy, partially collapsed without warning killing 43 people. Despite starting to show signs of deterioration in the 1990s and a number of proposals to replace the bridge in the intervening years, few initiatives were undertaken in a meaningful manner. The presentation explores the background and design philosophy for the Genoa bridge, overviews the construction and design of the bridge and highlights the possible causes of the collapse.