2014-2015 Annual Report, June 26, 2015

Lehigh University Student Chapter of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute page 1

2015-2016 ANNUAL REPORT

Lehigh University Student Chapter

of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute

Report Date: May 4, 2016

This report summarizes the membership and activities conducted by the Lehigh University Student Chapter of

the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute during the 2015-2016 academic year.

MISSION & GOALS

The contribution of Lehigh University in the field of structural engineering initiated more than 100 years ago. The

pictures in Figure 1 demonstrate a brief overview of Fritz Laboratory (more info: L1, L2, L3, L4). The Advanced

Technology for Large Structural Systems (ATLSS) Engineering Research Center at Lehigh University was

completed in 1986 (Figure 2). Since then, the contribution of Lehigh University in earthquake engineering is

significant (more info: L5, L6, L7). Thus, Lehigh University was an excellent place for the initiation of an EERI

student chapter that could contribute to the dissemination of knowledge, of the theory and practice of all

phases of earthquake engineering and other related fields as well as the furtherance of the professional

development of a student.

Figure 1: Selected pictures from Fritz Laboratory at Lehigh University

Photo from 1909 John Fritz stands next to the newly installed Riehle universal testing

machine in Fritz Laboratory.

Fritz Lab 1925. When completed in 1910, the Fritz Engineering Laboratory at Lehigh University was the largest and best-equipped university structural laboratory in the United States, serving as a prototype for subsequent university and research laboratories.

In 1991, the American Society of Civil Engineers designated the original building as a Civil Engineering Landmark.

Fritz Laboratory faculty and staff, ca. 1986.

Fritz Laboratory today, 5,000,000 lbs Universal Testing Machine

2014-2015 Annual Report, June 26, 2015

Lehigh University Student Chapter of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute page 2

Figure 2: Advanced Technology for Large Structural Systems (ATLSS) Engineering Research Center

Lehigh University EERI student chapter (denoted as EERI@LU) was established in fall 2013. The Graduate Student

Senate (GSS) at Lehigh University recognized the EERI@LU in spring 2014. Since then, EERI@LU initiated its

activities with main goal to inform undergraduate and graduate students about the importance of earthquake

engineering in our society and educate them on related topics.

MEMBERSHIP

The Lehigh University Student Chapter had a total of 11 members in 2015-2016.

OFFICERS

The Board consisted of the following members:

Role Name EERI Member

Number Email Student Status

President Aman Karamlou 16520 amk211@lehigh.edu Graduate student

Vice-President Amy Kordosky 18318 ank615@lehigh.edu Graduate student

Public Relations Chair

Michael Gritzmacher 18346 mbg315@lehigh.edu Graduate student

Secretary Xin Chu 16531 xic411@lehigh.edu Graduate student

Treasurer Joshua Core 18334 joc315@lehigh.edu Graduate student

ATLSS faculty and staff, ca. 1986.

Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES)Lehigh equipment site Control Room in ATLSS, 2013 NEESR-SG: Self-Centering Damage-Free Seismic-Resistant Steel Frame Systems

Entrance of ATLSS, 2013

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FACULTY & INDUSTRYADVISORS

Advisor: Prof. James M. Ricles, jmr5@lehigh.edu

Contact Member: Dr. Troy Morgan, tmorgan@exponent.com

MEMBERS

A complete list of members is shown below.

Name EERI Member Number Email Student Status

Aman Karamlou 16520 amk211@lehigh.edu Graduate student

Georgios Tsampras 16076 tsampras.g@gmail.com Graduate student

Xin Chu 16531 xic411@lehigh.edu Graduate student

Amy Kordosky 18318 ank615@lehigh.edu Graduate student

Michael Gritzmacher 18346 mbg315@lehigh.edu Graduate student

Joshua Core 18334 joc315@lehigh.edu Graduate student

Samantha Sabatino 18764 sas711@lehigh.edu Graduate student

Tugce Akbas 16519 tugceakbas90@gmail.com Graduate student

Chinmoy Kolay 16513 chk311@lehigh.edu Graduate student

Andre Tahmassian 16515 ant208@lehigh.edu Graduate student

Golnaz Shahidi 16676 sgs310@lehigh.edu Graduate student

BUDGET & FINANCIALS

Sponsor Name/Organization Contact Person Amount

Graduate Student Senate kaha@lehigh.edu 200.00 USD

CHAPTER ACTIVITIES

REGULAR CHAPTER MEETINGS

Regular meetings held on the dates listed below to discuss about activities, organizational issues, and promote

the student chapter within Lehigh University.

Meeting #1: October 7, 2015

Meeting #2: October 16, 2015

Meeting #3: November 11, 2015

Meeting #4: December 2, 2015

Meeting #6: January 28, 2016

Meeting #7: February 22, 2016

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Lehigh University Student Chapter of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute page 4

Meeting #8: March 21, 2016

Meeting #9: April 6, 2016

Friedman Family Visit ing Professionals Seminar : Sissy Nikolaou, Ph.D, PE, F.ASCE

EERI@LU hosted Dr. Sissy Nikolaou as part of EERI’s Friedman Family Visiting Professionals Program for her lecture,

“Rapid Geotechnical Reconnaissance Technologies for Multi Hazards.”

On February 26, 2015 Sissy Nikolaou was the first guest speaker.

A foundation engineer with over 20 years of experience, Sissy Nikolaou is a Senior Associate with New York City

based foundation engineering firm Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers (MRCE). She established and directs

MRCE's GeoSeismic Services Department, which performs advanced site-specific studies and geophysical

testing, and contributes to design guidelines.

An authority in seismic design, particularly in the Eastern U.S., Sissy's technical capabilities include both structural

and geotechnical engineering in multihazard environments with emphasis on performance-based engineering,

soil-structure interaction, seismic hazard analysis, liquefaction evaluation and mitigation and risk/resiliency

assessment of critical facilities. Her global consulting and managing experience includes the retrofit of the

Queensboro and RFK bridges, foundation and geoseismic aspects of the new World Trade Center, CitiField

Stadium and the new Tappan Zee Bridge in New York; several high-rise buildings in Mexico City; the new

waterfront development in Beirut; multi-use developments in the Middle East; security-sensitive projects in

Germany; and the rebuild of Christchurch, NZ.

Her leadership is demonstrated by invitations to serve as Director of the Board for Earthquake Engineering

Research Institute (EERI) and the American Council of Consulting Engineering Firms of New York (ACECNY), and

as Advisory Board Member to the Dean of Engineering at the University at Buffalo. She currently participates in

the technical committees of ASCE7-16 (seismic sub-committee) and NYC Building Code (chair for seismic,

member for foundations). She has led and been part of teams who responded to disasters such as 9- 11, and

structural evaluations and reconnaissance missions for Hurricane Sandy and many earthquakes.

Sissy has numerous publications, interviews and citations in AEC magazines, and keynote addresses in ASCE

Geo- and Structures Congresses. She was named Outstanding Woman in the Building Industry by the Women

Builders Council. Her contributions have been recognized with the Prakash Prize for Excellence in Geotechnical

Earthquake Engineering. When she received this prestigious award, she was not only the youngest individual to

receive it, but its first female winner. For her contributions, she was just elected Fellow of the American Society

of Civil Engineers.

Title of presentation: Rapid Geotechnical Reconnaissance Technologies for Multi Hazards.

Extreme multi-hazards of earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, landslides, floods, or terrorist attacks have

generated unfortunate, yet valuable lessons that reveal risks to our built environment and population. These

lessons often lead to modification of design codes and offer invaluable case histories that can advance

empirical methodologies, especially in geotechnical engineering. Reconnaissance immediately after a

disaster, observation and documentation of failures but also successes, and long term monitoring of the

recovery and rebuild are inherently necessary components for engineers to advance the state of practice and

benefit the society by creating safer designs.

Instrumentation is an essential tool for all these components, especially in our current, technology-driven times.

The way reconnaissance is performed has evolved dramatically in the past few years due to advancements in

instrumentation technologies. This presentation highlighted the importance of post-hazard observations with

selected historical examples and focus on instrumentation technologies for multi hazards geotechnical

reconnaissance through example case studies.

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Lehigh University Student Chapter of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute page 5

The speaker shared her reconnaissance experience after Hurricane Sandy, 9-11, and several earthquakes and

correlate the role of observations to engineering aspects of: (i) understanding the effects of extreme events; (ii)

studying the behavior of engineering designs to identify flaws for improvement or successes for replication in

the future and proper advancement of design codes; (iii) collecting data to enhance knowledge and prepare

for the next event; (iv) disseminate the data to assist response and rescue teams; (v) organize and use the data

as case histories that can assist in developing empirical methodologies that are still the core of the

geotechnical engineering practice.

Figure 3: Sissy Nikolaou, Friedman Family Visiting Professionals Program Lecture

EERI Seismic Design Competition Informational Presentation : Jakob Walter

On March 21, 2016 Jakob Walter was the second guest speaker.

Jakob Walter is a senior in the Civil Engineering bachelor’s program at Oregon State University. Jakob

participated in EERI’s Seismic Design Competition in 2014 with Oregon State University’s Student Chapter.

Title of presentation: Earthquake Engineering Research Institute Seismic Design Competition.

Jakob shared his experiences with EERI’s Seismic Design Competition with current undergraduates in Civil

Engineering at Lehigh University in an effort to launch the program and encourage students to compete in next

year’s competition. Jakob discussed the importance of earthquake and multi-hazard engineering, a

comprehensive overview of the seismic design proposal and competition, and the benefits of becoming an EERI

member and participating in the event.

Figure 4: Jakob Walter presenting about EERI Seismic Design Competition

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Lehigh University Student Chapter of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute page 6

From Research to Practice seminar series: Keivan Roknedin, Ph.D

EERI@LU hosted Dr. Keivan Roknedin as part of EERI’s as a part of “From Research to Practice” seminar series On

May 4, 2016.

Dr. Keivan Roknedin is a senior research scientist at AIG’s Analytics and Center of Excellence where he and his

colleagues develop and validate Earthquake Catastrophe Models for commercial Property Insurance. He

received his Ph.D. in 2013 from Rice University in Civil and Environmental Engineering. A native of Tehran, Iran, Dr.

Roknedin also holds a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degree in Civil Engineering from Sharif University

of Technology and Iran University of Science and Technology, respectively. At AIG, Dr. Roknedin focuses on

evaluating the seismic risk to commercial and industrial portfolios for technical pricing and portfolio risk

management. He is a member of American Society of Civil Engineers, Society for Industrial and Applied

Mathematics, and Society for Risk Analysis. He has served as a reviewer for over ten journals as well as several

funding agencies.

Title of presentation: Performance-Based Earthquake Engineering in Commercial Property Insurance.

The emergence of Catastrophe Models in mid 1990s transformed property insurance underwriting by

demonstrating the inadequacies of old actuarial models. Where the old models failed in predicting the

consequences of unprecedented earthquakes and hurricanes, Catastrophe Models provided better estimates

by reducing the epistemic uncertainties through accounting for a wide range of possibilities in the occurrence

and consequence of such events. This presentation reviews the performance of earthquake Catastrophe

Models, from seismic source identification to portfolio loss estimation, and highlights the adoption of

performance-based earthquake engineering through ATC-58 in Catastrophe Models. Performance-based

models take advantage of Incremental Dynamic Analyses (IDA) in evaluating the seismic performance of

buildings and provide a better estimation of tail losses. In addition, performance-based models are shown to

enhance the loss estimates from buildings’ non-structural and content components.

Figure 5: Keivan Roknedin, “From Research to Practice” seminar series

ELECTION

An election for officers for the 2016-2017 academic year will be held in September 2016 to ensure that the new

students will have the opportunity to become officers of the newly established Lehigh University student

chapter.

2014-2015 Annual Report, June 26, 2015

Lehigh University Student Chapter of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute page 7

LIST OF ATTACHMENTS

Included at the end of this report are various attachments to supplement the information included above. A

list of the attachments is included below:

The Following are the flyers of the events

2014-2015 Annual Report, June 26, 2015

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2014-2015 Annual Report, June 26, 2015

Lehigh University Student Chapter of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute page 9