Earthquake in Türkiye and Syria: Mechanism, Damage, and Recovery Strategy
Host: Prof. George Deodatis
Zoom Registration: Please click here to register.
At 4:17AM on Feb. 6, 2023, a magnitude-7.8 earthquake struck near Pazarcık City in south-central Türkiye, followed by a magnitude-7.5 event about nine hours later. In this seminar, scientists will explain what happened, including the complexity of the rupture itself, ground motion, building codes, and damages. Life-saving, health issues, and the human aspect in the disaster area will be discussed via demonstrations. A general roadmap for recovery and resilient structure technologies and suggestions will also be discussed.
Speaker Bios:
George Deodatis received his Diploma in Civil Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens in Greece in 1982. He holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Civil Engineering from Columbia University (received in 1984 and 1987 respectively). He started his academic career at Princeton University where he served as Assistant Professor and Associate Professor (with tenure). He moved to Columbia University in 2002 where he served as Associate Professor and Professor. He currently holds the Santiago and Robertina Calatrava Family Endowed Chair at the Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at Columbia University. He served as Department Chair from 2013 to 2019 (two terms). His research interests are in the area of probabilistic methods in civil engineering and engineering mechanics, with emphasis on risk analysis and risk management of the civil infrastructure subjected to natural and man-made hazards (including earthquakes, floods and climate change). He has received the National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award, the International Association for Structural Safety and Reliability Junior Research Prize, and the American Society of Civil Engineers Walter Huber Research Prize. He is a Fellow of the Engineering Mechanics Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers. In 2009, he was elected President of the International Association for Structural Safety and Reliability for a four-year term. In 2017, he was elected President of the Engineering Mechanics Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers for a two-year term. While on the faculty at Princeton University, he was awarded the President's Award for Distinguished Teaching, Princeton's highest teaching honor. At Columbia University, he has received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching and the Great Teacher Award from the Society of Columbia Graduates, Columbia's highest teaching honors.
Mustafa Erdik is a Turkish professor emeritus who is a former faculty member of the Middle East Technical University and Bogazici University. He is the president of the Turkish Earthquake Foundation, and his studies are concerned with strong-motion characterization, earthquake hazard and risk assessment. Following his graduation, Erdik started his academic career at the Middle East Technical University, where he served as the director of the Earthquake Engineering Research Center from 1980 to 1987. In 1988 he began to work at Bogazici University and established the Department of Earthquake Engineering in 1989. He also worked as the director of the Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute. In addition, Erdik served as the director of the Turkish Earthquake Engineering Research Committee. His current post is the president of the Turkish Earthquake Foundation. Erdik has published numerous articles and reports and edited various books on earthquake preparedness and other related topics. He has been involved in many significant activities, some of which include the Istanbul Earthquake Rapid Response and Early Warning System and the structural health monitoring arrays in World Heritage Sites of UNESCO such as Hagia Sophia and Suleymaniye Mosque. Erdik has been the recipient of various awards, including the United Nations's Sasakawa Disaster Prevention Award, NATO’s Science for Peace – Summit Prize, Bruce Bolt Medal by Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (February 2013), Prof. Nicholas Ambraseys Distinguished Lecture Award by the European Association for Earthquake Engineering and Science Award by Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (2018).
Domniki Asimaki received her Diploma in Civil Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens in Greece in 1998. She holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Civil Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (received in 2000 and 2004 respectively). Her research at Caltech since 2014 combines geotechnical engineering, computational mechanics and structural dynamics to study natural ground surface features and man-made geotechnical systems -- such as ridges, valleys, dams, tunnels, building foundations and offshore structures. She is particularly interested in assimilating high fidelity numerical simulations, field and experimental data, to develop engineering design models of infrastructure, resilient to hazards on urban scales and regional scales.
Ayse Hortacsu is Director of Projects at the Applied Technology Council (ATC), a non-profit structural engineering organization headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has over 20 years of experience in the field of structural engineering with a primary focus on earthquake engineering, as well as blast-resistant design. At ATC, she has managed projects on various technical issues ranging from selection and scaling of ground motions for seismic hazard analysis to the rapid visual screening of buildings for potential seismic hazards, as well as developing technical guidance to support policy decisions by local and national governments, resulting in nearly 50 publications to date. She is currently serving as a Director for the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) and has served in a similar role for the Northern California chapter of EERI and the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California (SEAONC). She is the founder of Women in Structural Engineering (WiSE) and a founding member of the Structural Engineering Equity and Engagement (SE3) Committee.
If you are interested in donating to the recovery effort, please see the links below for suggested organizations and fundraisers:
Turkish Philanthropy Funds:
https://donate.tpfund.org/campaign/tpf-turkiye-earthquake/c465112
Official Government Fundraiser:
https://www.akut.org.tr/en/donation
Other Institutions:
https://donate.redcross.org.uk/appeal/turkey-syria-earthquake-appeal#form-donate-module
This event is sponsored by the Columbia University Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics.