Letter from the EERI President

Early in May, Executive Director Tubbesing and I, accompanied by members of EERI ‘s Public Policy Committee — Arrietta Chakos, Director of the Acting in Time Disaster Recovery Project at Harvard’s Kennedy School, and Judith Mitrani-Reiser, an EERI Young Professional member on the engineering faculty of Johns Hopkins University — made the rounds in Washington, D.C. It was an incredible learning experience for me personally, and I think we had an important positive impact on how earthquake engineering and the National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program (NEHRP) are perceived in the Capitol.

The Technical Program Committee of the 9th U.S. National and 10th Canadian Conference on Earthquake Engineering (9USN/10CCEE) is pleased to announce that nearly 1,400 abstracts have been submitted to the online submission web site. Authors will be notified of acceptance by July 15. The committee, co-chaired by professors Shamim Sheikh of the University of Toronto and Catherine French of the University of Minnesota, estimate that 800 final papers will be submitted with 1,500 attendees from all over the world. They are planning for approximately 100 technical sessions, including several panel discussions, augmented by two plenary sessions and six special sessions with invited speakers, as well as poster sessions.

EERI has been notified by Thomson Reuters Products and Custom Information Services that Earthquake Spectra has been selected for coverage in the Science Citation Index, beginning with the first issue of Vol. 25. This achievement recognizes the quality that Spectra has maintained since its inception in 1984, reflected in its Impact Factor and other indicators of scientific excellence.

On May 5, “All Things Considered” on National Public Radio (NPR) featured the post-earthquake housing reconstruction program in Sichuan, China, being carried out by the nonprofit organization Build Change, whose CEO and founder is EERI member Elizabeth Hausler. Build Change now employs 30 Chinese professionals who are working every day with homeowners, builders, and government officials to build safer houses. Operations expanded to seven villages in Tumen on April 20, covering approximately 9,700 families. Build Change provides hands-on training courses for homeowners and engineers. Staffers also meet one-on-one with homeowners and draft individually tailored layouts that incorporate their preferences and earthquake-resistant design features.

The Shamsher Prakash Foundation is soliciting nominations for the 2009 Shamsher Prakash Annual Prize for Excellence in the Practice of Geotechnical Engineering, which is given to a young (less than 45 years old) engineer, scientist, or researcher from anywhere in the world. Candidates should be specialists in geotechnical engineering or geotechnical earthquake engineering, have had significant independent contributions to the field, and show promise of future excellence. The award includes a cash prize of $1,100.

Nominations are due on or before September 30, 2009. All nominations will be reviewed by a judging committee of international experts from Canada, Japan, Ireland, Taiwan, and the United States. The award will be announced by December 31, 2009.

For information on submitting nominations, visit www.yoga10.org/prize_excel_MST.html .

EERI Platinum Subscribing Member Computers & Structures recently announced the release of SAP2000 V14, its integrated software for the modeling, analysis, and design of structures, available in basic, plus, and advanced levels. The innovative enhancements in this version include a nonlinear, layered shell element using a directional material model for pushover analysis of shear-wall structures and similar applications; material-based damping for linear and nonlinear direct-integration time-history analysis as well as steady-state and spectral (or PSD) analysis; fully automated bridge design check per AASHTO Guide Specifications for LRFD Seismic Bridge Design 2009; and new design code-related enhancements.

For more information, visit csiberkeley.com/SAP2000_news/v14/.

The 2010 Annual Meeting of the Seismological Society of America will be held April 20-23 in Portland, Oregon. The meeting will commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Mount St Helens eruption. SSA is currently accepting session proposals across the broad fields of earthquake science, geotechnical and earthquake engineering, and seismology, as well as paleoseismology, earth structure, explosion monitoring, non-volcanic tremor, slow slip processes, earthquake processes, other seismic source processes, and hazard analysis. One focus of the meeting will be regional seismotectonics and seismic hazards of the Pacific Northwest, encompassing such topics as the Cascadia subduction zone, urban earthquake hazards, episodic tremor and slip, volcano seismology, studies of crustal faults in the greater Portland area, and local planning and emergency management issues associated with earthquake and tsunami response.

Send session proposals by October 1 to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . To see examples from the 2009 meeting, visit http://www.seismosoc.org/meetings/2009/specialsessions.html.

The public-private partnership GEM (Global Earthquake Model) intends to develop the first global, open-source model for seismic risk assessment at a national and regional scale, and aims to achieve its goals by developing state-of-the-art open source software and global databases necessary for reliably mapping earthquake risk.

EERI has issued a new online report, Identification of Methods to Achieve Successful Implementation of Nonstructural and Equipment Seismic Restraints, co-authored by EERI member John Masek of VIE Consultants and Robert Ridge of Brigham Young University. The report is the outcome of a research project that was supported by the Special Projects and Initiatives Committee of the EERI Endowment Fund. 

Download report (5.3MB)