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Board of Directors
Polat Gülkan - Director
Biography
Polat Gülkan is currently a professor of structural engineering at Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara, Turkey, which he joined in 1971. He also heads the Disaster Management Research Center there, which he helped to create in 1997, and is a member of the board of directors of METU's Earthquake Engineering Research Center that celebrates its thirtieth year in 2004. During a period of over three decades, Gülkan has been a visiting engineer at the former EERC of University of California, Berkeley (1977-79); a senior consultant with Basler and Hofmann, Engineers and Planners, Zürich, Switzerland (1986-88); and a visiting professor at the School of Civil Engineering at Purdue University (1995-96). Academic administrative positions Gülkan has held include stints as dean of the graduate school at METU (1981-82) and as dean of engineering at Hacettepe University, Ankara (1982-86). He is a licensed civil engineer in California. He joined EERI in 1992, and has contributed to the EERI World Housing Encyclopedia with two articles on commonly encountered building types in his country. Polat Gülkan currently serves on the editorial board of Earthquake Spectra and the Turkish Journal of Engineering and Environmental Sciences. He is a former Fulbright scholar, and the recipient of the 2004 NATO Summit Science Prize.
Polat Gülkan has served as president of the Turkish chapter of the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering (IABSE) since 1988, and has been one of the directors of the International Association for Earthquake Engineering since 1996. He is also a member of the Advisory Council on Nuclear Safety for the Turkish Atomic Energy Authority. He has been involved as a director in over 60 projects, both in Turkey and in Europe.
Gülkan's professional areas of focus have shown a broad scope, comprising stress analysis, earthquake engineering and structural dynamics, ground motion prediction, seismic hazard mitigation policy development, seismic code enforcement, seismic hazard assessment, building retrofit, safety of school buildings, nuclear safety, and building instrumentation. He has authored more than 250 professional articles, papers, and reports. A number of these works have produced lasting effects in his country by defining effective legislative tools in seismic hazard reduction. One was the development in 1993 of the first probability-based seismic zone map of Turkey that went into effect in 1996. Another was a critical evaluation of the legislative framework on urban development and the building construction supervision system in Turkey, a two-year study that has served as the basis of much of the reform that was put into effect following the two major 1999 earthquakes in the Sea of Marmara region.
Vision
I recall when we, a few local or visiting members of the EERI reconnaissance team, milled about in mud in front of the Provincial Governor's Office in Adapazari five years ago. The drizzle had depressed everyone further, and made the air heavy and clammy. The flower beds and shrubs in what had been the carefully laid out central divider of the broad street had been mutilated by rescue and heavy lifting equipment, and a few team members were wearing rainwear they had improvised by punching head-size holes in transparent plastic garment bags. The scenery seemed to be surreal, with people standing in line to call relatives or friends from tents serving as makeshift phone booths, precariously tilted on collapsed buildings lining the avenue, occasional sirens wailing in the distance. "What would be the lessons learned from all this?" I wondered.
A unique feature of EERI has been the "Learning from Earthquakes" program, as indeed every earthquake parts several veils in this broad interdisciplinary area, and teaches someone something new each time. Supplement A to Volume 16 of Earthquake Spectra provided a survey of many lessons from the terrible year for Turkey, 1999, when August's Kocaeli event was replayed at a smaller scale in November. Other reports describing what we have learned from Northridge, Kobe, ChiChi, and others provide a lasting repository of carefully curated information and observation about each of these important earthquakes that will serve to improve our collective awareness about them. Examination of the contents of Earthquake Spectra will show that the organization has long outgrown its mantle of engineering, and has become a forum for many disciplines. My vision for the Institute is that it will continue to provide global service, not only in quickly bringing to the engineering community's use the rapidly evolving tools of improved design and analysis through its flagship publication, but also in acting as perhaps the only forum that offers public policy options in earthquake protection, community recovery, planning, and social science. They provide insight into the complicated impact of earthquakes on humans. But I am, sadly, only an engineer. So you will appreciate why my favorite among all EERI publications has been the Oral History Series. For me, reading an interview with the likes of Housner or Degenkolb or Blume is like taking a journey back in time to when history was being made, spoken by the men who were making it.
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Board of Directors