2023 Distinguished Lecture: Anne Kiremidjian, PhD, 03/31

2023 Distinguished Lecture
Anne Kiremidjian, PhD
Professor, Stanford University School of Engineering
2 p.m. March 31 (Reception to follow)
The Inn at Villanova
Zoom: https://bit.ly/vucoedlvirtual23

Villanova University’s College of Engineering is pleased to announce its 2023 Distinguished Lecture, featuring Anne Kiremidjian, PhD, the C.L. Peck, Class of 1906 Professor in the School of Engineering at Stanford University. The lecture will take place at 2 p.m. Friday, March 31, at the Inn at Villanova and virtually through Zoom. Register by March 22 to attend in person or virtually.

A civil and environmental engineer, Dr. Kiremidjian’s current research focuses on the design and implementation of wireless sensor networks for structural damage and health monitoring and the development of robust algorithms for structural damage diagnosis that can be embedded in wireless sensing units. She works on structural component and systems reliability methods; structural damage evaluation models; and regional damage, loss and casualty estimation methods utilizing geographic information and database management systems for portfolios of buildings or spatially distributed lifeline systems assessment with ground motion and structure correlations.

Dr. Kiremidjian’s lecture will address “Community Earthquake Recovery Modeling.” The resilience of a community depends on its ability to recover from disasters such as severe earthquakes. After the emergency period, which typically takes 48 hours to two weeks, the repair and reconstruction of damaged facilities depends on prudent decisions by officials to optimize the recovery time and bring the community back to normal or pre-event functionality. Resources needed for the recovery process, such as material, personnel and financing, are not readily available, and any reconstruction strategy needs to be under these constraints. This presentation will focus on modeling the post-disaster recovery process leading to the identification of optimal decisions for reconstruction of under limited resources. Applications to school and hospital reconstruction strategies will be used to illustrate the models for alternative reconstruction decisions under variety of resource limitations. Data from Indonesian earthquakes, such as the Lombok 2018 events, are used to test the analytical model and illustrate the strategies for school and hospital reconstruction.

Begun in 2019, the College of Engineering Distinguished Lecture Series brings world-class experts to the University to share their knowledge, experience and wisdom with faculty, students, the Villanova community, and the public. Distinguished speakers have made outstanding and impactful contributions to their respective fields and may be U.S.-based or international experts on technical topics in any engineering discipline of interest to the Villanova community.