President
Term: 2020-2021

Biography

David Cocke, S.E. is the founder and President of Structural Focus in Gardena, CA with expertise in seismic evaluation, historic preservation, retrofits, and new design.

David brings a long history of involvement and leadership with EERI. David joined EERI in 1992 and is a Charter Member of the Southern California Chapter. He has served for several years as a member of the EERI Initiatives Development Committee and has participated in the Friedman Family Visiting Professionals Program since 2009. 

President Elect
Term: 2022

Biography

Janiele Maffei received an M.S. degree (1980) in Civil (Structural) Engineering and A.B. degree (1978) in Architecture, both from the University of California, Berkeley. Ms. Maffei is licensed as both a Civil Engineer and Structural Engineer in California with over 40 years of experience in the design of new buildings, retrofit designs of existing buildings, seismic evaluations, seismic loss estimation studies, design of equipment anchorages, preparation of construction documents, project management, and construction administration. After fifteen years as a project manager and regional office director with Degenkolb Engineers, she opened her own practice where she managed complex design projects involving many disciplines. In 2011, Ms. Maffei joined the California Earthquake Authority (CEA) as its Chief Mitigation Officer. In this capacity, she serves as the Executive Director of the California Residential Mitigation Program and manages the CEA research department.

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.

Director
Term: 2021-2024

Biography

Carlien Bou-Chedid an Independent Consulting Structural Engineer in Ghana. Her career has spanned more than 35years and covers a breadth of activities. She worked as a structural engineer with the Architectural and Engineering Services Corporation (AESC now AESL) where she was engaged in the design, supervision of construction and rehabilitation of several structures in Ghana. She was later engaged as Director, Education and Training of the Ghana Institution of Engineering (GhIE) during which period she was involved in designing policies and programs for the education and training of engineers. She also served as the Executive Secretary of the GhIE responsible for management of its administrative and financial affairs.

Vice President
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.

Her technical capabilities revolve around innovative approaches to improve the resilience and robustness of structural systems affected by natural and man-made hazards. This includes performance-based design approaches of structural systems to decrease the environmental impact of the built environment on the natural environment. Erica’s focus is on steel, composite systems, mass timber construction, and connections. These research interests are implemented through both large-scale experimental testing and numerical modeling approaches. She has been a member of a number of post-earthquake reconnaissance team missions including Haiti (2010), Napa (2014), and Italy (2016), and Mexico City (2017) in addition to post-wildland fire investigations after the California Camp Fire.

Director
Term: 2021-2024

Biography

Ayse [eye-sha] Hortacsu is Director of Projects at the Applied Technology Council (ATC) in the San Francisco Bay Area and has been a member of EERI since 2001, ever since she graduated from Stanford University. She is currently serving as the Chair of the EERI Oral History Committee that seeks to connect current members to those who have had pioneering careers in the field of earthquake engineering by recording their impressions, judgments, and experiences. As a Housner Fellow in 2014, Ayse helped complete a project on building code implementation in Nepal. She served as a Director for the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California (SEAONC) in 2016-2018 and the EERI Northern California chapter in 2009-2012.

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. 

Director
Term: 2020-2023

Biography

Terri Norton, Ph.D. is the Associate Dean for Students and Strategic Initiatives and associate professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Bucknell University. She also serves as the executive director of the Engineering Success Alliance. Terri’s technical expertise is in the area of structural dynamics and structural vulnerability. Prior to Bucknell, Terri was faculty at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and worked at the Aerospace Corporation.

Director
Term: 2020-2023

Biography

Jonathan P. Stewart is a Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering at UCLA, where he has been a faculty member since 1996 and served as department chair from 2012-2018. He brings expertise in geotechnical earthquake engineering and engineering seismology. Jonathan serves on the Building Seismic Safety Council Provisions Update Committee and the Southern California Earthquake Center Planning Committee, and is co-principal investigator of the Geotechnical Extreme Event Reconnaissance Association.

Director
Term: 2022-2025

Biography

Zahraa Saiyed, P.E., Associate AIA, LEED AP, M.EERI, 2011, is a multi-disciplinary disaster risk reduction, public policy, and risk governance consultant with background and training as an architect, building scientist, structural engineer, and educator. She is a co-founder and principal of Scyma Consulting located in the Bay Area, a Research Affiliate with MIT’s Urban Risk Lab, and is a Senior Disaster Risk Reduction Consultant for the World Bank, where she works on earthquake engineering, wildfire management, mental health, and community engagement. Zahraa has co-chaired the EERI Public Policy and Advocacy Committee since 2018. In this role, she has contributed to the advancement of seismic safety policies at all governmental levels, advocated on behalf of EERI, and facilitated the creation of regional public policy committees. She is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley in Architecture and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Architecture and Structural Engineering with coursework from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Director
Term: 2022-2025

Biography

Nick Gregor, Ph.D., is a consulting seismologist located in the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area and has been an active member of EERI since 1992. His primary discipline and focus for the past 25 years is for the understanding and application of seismological principles, research, and models for seismic hazard assessments. After completing his Ph.D. at U.C. Berkeley, he joined the seismology group at Bechtel, which provided a great learning environment for technical interactions between seismologists, geotechnical, structural, and earthquake engineers. His tenure of nearly 25 years culminated in 2019 as the senior seismologist for the company. Since leaving Bechtel, Nick has been an independent consultant working on small and large projects both domestically and internationally. Nick is currently the EERI representative for the Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS) National Steering Committee and a member of the technical workshop meeting planning committee for the Consortium of Organization for Strong Motion Observation Systems (COSMOS).