Board of Directors

President

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.
 Read more

Past-President

Biography

Mary Comerio is a Professor in the Graduate School at UC Berkeley and a faculty member in Architecture since 1978, serving at Chair from 2006 to 2009.
As an architect, she has designed numerous public- and private facilities but her career focus has been on seismic safety for housing and post-disaster recovery. She is the author of numerous publications, bringing together engineering and retrofit technologies, economic impacts and policy guidance.  Read more

Vice President

Biography

David Cocke, S.E. has been practicing Structural Engineering since 1981. He received his Bachelors from Virginia Tech and his Masters from San Jose State University. David founded Structural Focus in 2001 after 20 years at Degenkolb Engineers. He is a registered Structural Engineer in California and several other states, with expertise in seismic evaluation, historic preservation, retrofits and new design.  Read more

Secretary/Treasurer

Biography

Janiele Maffei is Chief Mitigation Officer of the California Earthquake Authority in Sacramento, California. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley, where she obtained her AB degree in architecture and an MS in civil engineering. Maffei is a registered structural engineer who has worked in the earthquake engineering industry for over 30 years.   Read more

Director

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. He is currently Chair of the National Seismic Hazard and Risk Assessment Steering Committee, in support of the National Seismic Hazard Map and related products of the U. S. Geological Survey, and a member of their Scientific Earthquake Studies Advisory Committee.
 Read more

Director

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

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

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

Biography

Danielle Hutchings Mieler, P.E. is a Project Engineer and Risk/Resilience Specialist with A3GEO, Inc. She received a B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering from UC Berkeley and a B.A. in Sociology from UC Santa Cruz. Danielle’s experience includes natural hazard and risk assessments, mitigation, adaptation and resilience planning, policy development, risk communication, and civil and geotechnical design for infrastructure facilities. Danielle’s career interests include incorporating resilience thinking into land use and development plans, developing actions needed to address the seismic risk of the Bay Area’s housing, and communicating hazard and risk to the public.

 Read more

Director

Biography

Sissy Nikolaou, PhD, PE, is a practicing earthquake engineer with more than 20 years of experience. She is a Multi-Hazards & Geotechnical Engineering Principal with WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff in New York City, where she oversees the organization’s multi-hazard resilience engineering practice. Her education includes a Diploma from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the State University of New York at Buffalo (UB), where she is now an Advisory Board member of the Dean of Engineering.  Read more

Director

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. After twenty-two years of residency, he moved with his family to Utah where he continues his practice while maintaining his Northern California office.
 Read more