CEEM Seminar | Johnathan Glassman | UCLA
A Grid Under Stress: Scalable Risk Engineering for Critical Infrastructure
Critical infrastructure is operating under increasing stress as demand grows, assets age in place, and evolving hazards increase the frequency and severity of extreme loading conditions. The electric grid illustrates this challenge acutely as interactions among asset condition, environmental hazards, system operations, and surrounding landscapes can contribute to catastrophic wildfires with consequences for communities, ecosystems, and the economy. Using the 2018 Camp Fire as a motivating context, this presentation examines the development and deployment of an integrated set of engineering solutions for assessing electric grid failure and wildfire risk. These solutions include probabilistic models integrated with physics-based models of asset failure, ignition probability, and wildfire consequences, along with the decision-support tools for risk-reduction measures, for example, Public Safety Power Shutoff. Their development required the integration of civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering with probabilistic risk assessment, uncertainty quantification, geospatial data analysis, large-scale data engineering, and custom software solutions.
Drawing on the speaker’s experience architecting and implementing these solutions, the presentation will discuss how scientific and engineering models were translated into scalable, operational systems. Particular attention will be given to model architecture, data limitations, verification and validation, uncertainty communication, technical defensibility, and the challenges of deploying interconnected models within a changing operational environment. The presentation will conclude with open research questions at the intersection of infrastructure resilience, hazard modeling, inference, data quality, and risk-informed decision-making, areas in which collaboration between industry and academia can advance both fundamental research and practical solutions.
Johnathan Glassman
Dr. Glassman is a multidisciplinary expert whose background spans Systems Engineering, Data Science, Software Development, Civil and Structural Engineering, Reliability Engineering, and Emergency Management. He is known for leveraging deep domain expertise in civil engineering design and analysis to architect innovative and practice digital solutions, ranging from advanced analytics to AI-enabled tools, for both public and private sector clients. Dr. Glassman's approach is distinguished by his commitment to integrating engineering and scientific principles with data-driven methods and digital innovation to deliver high-impact solutions for rapidly evolving infrastructure, resilience, and technology challenges. Dr. Glassman has extensive experience leading cross-functional teams and bridges the gap between engineering fundamentals and innovative technology. He has guided organizations through complex systems engineering challenges and organizational transitions, including quantifying the reliability and resilience of large-scale infrastructure networks, and delivering intelligence solutions that empower insightful decision-making and proactive risk management.