PI and Director Dr. John van de Lindt, Co-Director Dr. Bruce Ellingwood and Co-PIs Dr. Suren Chen and Dr. Hussam Mahmoud have been awarded $20M by NIST over 5 years for a research center focused on resiliency to communities affected by disasters. This Community Resilience Center of Excellence will be working with NIST researchers and partners from 10 other universities, and will develop computer tools to help local governments decide how each can best invest resources intended to lessen the impact of extreme weather and other hazards on buildings and infrastructure and to recover rapidly in their aftermath.
“This center complements NIST’s long-standing efforts to improve the performance of the built environment against natural hazards-such as tornadoes, coastal flooding, wildfires and earthquakes-as well as large-scale, human-caused disruptions,” said Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and Acting NIST Director Willie May. “The tools developed by the center will help to further advance the important goal of disaster resilience from ambitious concepts to cost-effective solutions that communities can implement over time.”
Congratulations to John, Bruce, Suren and Hussam!