STRATEGIC RESEARCH FOCUS AREA
Infrastructure connects our world
Infrastructure systems are at the intersection of human society and our engineered world. As civil engineers, we balance new and existing systems, assessing when to repair versus when to replace. We have a pressing need for resilient and sustainable infrastructure to meet societal demand while addressing the challenges of population growth and climate change.
More than buildings and bridges
Our research develops solutions that integrate engineering, social science, and economics to provide decision support for natural and human-made threats. We use advanced modeling to understand the impacts of disasters like earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and wildfires on infrastructure. Our models couple the performance of buildings, multi-modal transportation systems, and water and energy networks, examining their interdependencies and impacts on the social and economic institutions they support. We conduct large-scale experiments and simulations to inform risk-informed decision-making and strengthen community resilience.
Risk-Informed Decision Support
- Model natural hazards
- Provide real-time risk assessment
- Optimize systems and their design
- Manage transportation systems
- Monitor structural health
- Integrate physical, social, and economic systems
Sustainable Infrastructure Systems
- Assess life cycle and cost optimization
- Innovate sustainable material applications
Urban Infrastructure Resilience
- Analyze damage and loss
- Develop recovery models
- Quantify climate change impacts on communities
- Provide risk assessment and performance-based engineering of physical systems
- Interdependent physical-social-economic modeling and analysis
- Research waterway bridges