Board of Directors

President
Term: 2019-2020

Biography

Laurie Johnson (M. EERI, 1990) has nearly 30 years of experience in urban planning and disaster recovery planning, management and research. She has written extensively about land use and risk, disaster recovery and reconstruction, and the economics of catastrophes and studied many of the world’s major urban disasters, including the 2011 Tohoku Japan, 2010-2011 Christchurch New Zealand, 2008 China, 1995 Kobe Japan, and 1994 Northridge earthquakes.  Read more

Past-President
Term: 2019-2020

Biography

David is a Senior Principal, and emeritus President, CEO and Board Chair of Forell/Elsesser Engineers Inc., with over 40 years of professional practice (35 years at F/E!) in structural and earthquake engineering. His strength, gained over the breadth and depth of his career, is a holistic perspective of a projects’ planning, design and construction and the collaborative integration of creative structural solutions with architects, engineers and builders.
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Vice President
Term: 2017-2020

Biography

Barry H. Welliver is Owner and Principal Engineer of BHW Engineers, L.L.C. with offices in Larkspur, California and Draper, Utah. Barry graduated from the University of Connecticut and moved to Northern California in the early 1970’s to study earthquakes and become involved with the newly emerging earthquake engineering community. There he worked for several prominent structural engineering firms before establishing his own private practice in 1979. 
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Secretary/Treasurer Term: 2018-2023 (previously served as Director on the board from 2015-2017)

Biography

Lucy Arendt, Ph.D., is the Associate Dean and Director of the Cofrin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. She is also an Associate Professor of Management. She earned her Ph.D. in Management Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and has been a full-time faculty member since 2006. She was the recipient of the 2008 Founders Association Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the 2010 Student Nominated Teaching Award.  Read more

Director
Term: 2017-2020

Biography

John Anderson is a professor of geophysics in the Department of Geological Sciences and Engineering and the Nevada Seismological Laboratory at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR). John teaches an annual class on the fundamentals of engineering seismology, along with other classes covering physics of the earth, theoretical seismology, seismic hazard analysis, and earthquake source physics. He has been involved in establishing strong motion networks in the US, Mexico, and Turkey, and in research on fundamental and applied problems related to seismic hazards and strong earthquake ground motions. 
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Director
Term: 2016-2019

Biography

Ross W. Boulanger is the Director of the Center for Geotechnical Modeling and professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Davis. He received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley in 1990 and 1987, respectively, and his B.A.Sc. degree in Civil Engineering from the University of British Columbia in 1986. He became a registered professional engineer in the State of California in 1992.  Read more

Director
Term: 2016-2019

Biography

Gregory G. Deierlein is the John A. Blume Professor of Engineering at Stanford University where he directs the Blume Earthquake Engineering Center. He earned his B.S. from Cornell University, M.S. from the University of California at Berkeley, and PhD. from the University of Texas at Austin. Between his M.S. and Ph.D., Greg worked with Leslie E. Robertson and Associates in New York, where he was involved in the structural design of the 72-story Bank of China Building in Hong Kong and other landmark buildings.  Read more

Director
Term: 2019 – 2022

Biography

Erica Fischer, Ph.D., P.E. is an assistant professor of structural engineering at Oregon State University. She received a B.S. from Cornell University and a Ph.D. from Purdue University. Prior to Oregon State, she worked as a structural engineer in New York and Seattle where she focused mainly on renovations and retrofits of existing buildings.

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Director
Term: 2018-2021

Biography

Tara Hutchinson is a Professor in the Department of Structural Engineering at the University of California, San Diego with broad research interests in the area of geotechnical, structural and earthquake engineering. Much of her efforts involve full- or large-scale shake table and fixed reaction-type experimentation.  Read more

Director
Term: 2019 – 2022

Biography

Jorge F. Meneses, Ph.D., P.E., G.E., D.GE, F.ASCE, Principal Geotechnical Engineer, RMA Group, Inc., has more than 30 years of consultancy, project management, research, and teaching experience, in both private industry and research institutions in the field of geotechnical and earthquake engineering. He has been involved in numerous projects serving as a technical lead in geotechnical earthquake engineering and foundation engineering across the country and various markets including water, nuclear, transportation, high rise buildings, energy, schools, hospitals, commercial and industrial. 

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Director
Term: 2018-2021

Biography

Dr. Judith Mitrani-Reiser (M. EERI, 2001) is the Director of the Disaster and Failure Studies Program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). She earned her B.S. from the University of Florida, M.S. from the University of California at Berkeley, and Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology. During her B.S., Judy worked at Exponent Failure Analysis, where her curiosity for understanding the technical causes of failures first began.  Read more