The Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) organized, at the direction of the National Science Foundation (NSF), a research needs workshop for recipients of Japan and New Zealand RAPID awards. The meeting took place February 9th and 10th in Arlington, Virginia. The workshop was organized so that recipients could:

1) share some of the initial findings from their research projects;

2) have the opportunity to interact and collaborate with other event researchers from a broad range of disciplines; and

3) provide NSF with solid recommendations for emerging research themes, opportunities, and needs.

Visit the Japan & New Zealand NSF RAPID Workshop page for more information about the meeting including the participant list, abstracts and bios, posters, and presentation slides. The Final Report will also be available when it is published.

The Huixian Earthquake Engineering Foundation (HEEF) in China and the US-China Earthquake Engineering Foundation (USA) are offering ten Liu Huixian Earthquake Engineering Scholarships in 2012 for graduate students from China, the United States, and Singapore, or who are enrolled in member organizations of the Asian-Pacific Network of Centers for Earthquake Engineering Research (ANCER). Students selected for the award will be issued a certificate and RMB 10,000 (approximately US$1,500) from the two foundations.

Applications must be submitted to HEEF by April 20, 2012. For application information, visit http://hxeef.iem.cn/hxeefeng/1-Home Page/xw8.html

EERI’s Housner Fellows Management Committee undertook the difficult task of selecting eight Fellows out of 55 competitive applications that were received for the first class of Housner Fellows, the new leadership training program that EERI inaugurated with a bequest from George Housner. Additional support for the program has been provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) of the World Bank. GFDRR is supporting the participation of three Fellows.

The eight Fellows selected are as follows:

1. Syed Mohammed Ali, Earthquake Engineering Centre, University of Engineering & Technology, Peshawar, Pakistan (GFDRR);
2. Cale R. Ash, Degenkolb Engineers, Seattle, Washington;
3. Carlien D. Bou-Chedid, Ghana Institution of Engineers on the Geological Technical Committee of NADMO (GFDRR);
4. Danielle Hutchings, Association of Bay Area Governments, Oakland, California;
5. Lindsey Maclise, Forell/Elsesser Engineers. Inc., San Francisco, California;
6. Hassan Steven Mdala, Geological Survey Department of Malawi (GFDRR);
7. Kate Stillwell, EQECAT, Oakland, California;
8. Vivek Rawal, People-in-Centre Consulting, Ahmedabad, India.

Read more about the fellows here.

This inaugural class will meet with the program leadership trainer, EERI member Lucy Arendt of the University of Wisconsin Green Bay, along with Board members and members of the Housner Management Committee during the Annual Meeting in April in Memphis. They will participate in a weeklong leadership training program at Asilomar in Pacific Grove, California, in June. During their two years of active participation in the program, the class will develop a group project and individual projects with the support of mentors. EERI members will soon be able to learn more about each Fellow online and follow their progress.

The Management Committee intends for this program to run for at least five years. If funding can be secured to make the program sustainable, it will continue. Applications for the next class will be solicited in the summer of 2012. For additional information about the program, visit http://www.eeri.org/projects/housner-fellows-program/.

The special issue Earthquake Spectra on the January 2010 Haiti earthquake is now available online at http://eqs.eeri.org. Members have access to all online articles as a benefit. Nonmembers can access the abstracts of all articles from the link above and can purchase PDFs of individual articles for $25. Nonmembers can also purchase the printed version of the entire issue for $50 from http://www.eeri.org/cds_publications/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=337. The printed version is $30 for EERI members.
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The Concrete Coalition is a network of individuals, governments, institutions, and agencies with a shared interest in assessing the risk associated with non-ductile concrete buildings and developing strategies with which to mitigate that risk. The Coalition is a program of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Center (PEER) at UC Berkeley, the Applied Technology Council and their partners, including the Structural Engineers Association of California, The American Concrete Institute, BOMA of Greater Los Angeles and the U.S. Geological Survey.
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On Sunday, September 18^th a magnitude 6.9 earthquake occurred in Sikkim, India, near the border with Nepal.  The earthquake damaged buildings as well as infrastructure, and triggered hundreds of landslides which has slowed the rescue and relief efforts in west Sikkim. The earthquake caused damage in India, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet.

EERI is coordinating with members and colleagues in India (NICEE) and Nepal (NSET)  to gather information on this event.  Updates will be posted soon.

View the full earthquake details listed by USGS.

Related Articles:

NEPAL: Indian earthquake prompts “wake-up call”

Sikkim earthquake: Toll climbs to 71, many still trapped under debris

Update on the earthquake in India, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet 

After the M5.8 earthquake of August 23rd, EERI assembled a team of east coast EERI members to document various aspects of the event.  James Beavers, a consulting structural engineer from Knoxville, Tennessee and William Anderson, a sociologist and an EERI board member from Washington DC are co-team leaders.
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At 1:51 EDT on Tuesday, August 23rd, a M5.8 earthquake with its epicenter in Northern Virginia shook most of the east coast with people reporting shaking between Georgia and Canada. There were no reported fatalities or serious injuries.
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