EERI is pleased to announce that the recipients of the 2025 Younger Member Award are Cristina Cordova-Arias (M.EERI 2018) and Kaleigh Yost (M.EERI 2012). The EERI Younger Member Award is awarded to recognize early-career members of the Institute who have made outstanding contributions to the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute and the pursuit of its objectives in the early stages of their career, especially contributions that have improved opportunities for and increased the impact of younger members within the Institute.
Cristina Cordova-Arias is a doctoral researcher in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geomatic Engineering at University College London, focusing on developing functional recovery models to enhance community resilience in post-earthquake environments. She was recognized as one of the 2024 New Faces of Civil Engineering Professionals by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Cristina formerly served as the Program Director of Civil Engineering at Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola (USIL) in Lima, Peru, and founded the EERI Student Chapter at USIL. She has contributed to a World Bank project on structural-upgrading policy-making for school buildings and participated in EERI's Learning From Earthquakes Travel Study Program trip in New Zealand. Cristina holds a M.Sc. and B.Sc. in Civil Engineering from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru. She and her sister are the founders of the "Tu historia tiene poder" initiative, which empowers low-income and first-generation students in Peru to pursue higher education.
As co-chair of EERI's Younger Members Committee (YMC), Cristina has played a key role in organizing Meet the Leaders events, expanding opportunities for early-career members. She receives this award in recognition of her work to increase professional learning opportunities for younger members, to promote diversity and international representation, and to foster an inclusive environment within EERI through actively encouraging the involvement of younger members from the Latin America and Caribbean region.
Kaleigh Yost is the Kimball Early Career Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Pennsylvania State University. Her expertise is in geotechnical site characterization and numerical methods for geohazard applications. Kaleigh is currently working on projects studying soil liquefaction and levee stability under changing hydroclimatic conditions. Kaleigh holds a Ph.D. from Virginia Tech, an M.S. from the University of Texas at Austin, and a B.S. from the University of Notre Dame.
Kaleigh joined EERI when she formed Notre Dame's first undergraduate Seismic Design Team in 2011, and has served in various capacities for EERI ever since. While working towards her PhD, she was co-president of Virginia Tech’s student chapter and helped organize the Post-Earthquake Reconnaissance Workshop as a member of the Student Leadership Council (SLC). She currently serves as a co-chair of the Public Policy and Advocacy (PPA) Committee, where she has helped develop policy position statements, advocated for the reauthorization of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program and the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program, and developed new initiatives to involve younger members in the PPA. She also serves the Younger Members Committee as Mentorship Coordinator and advises the Penn State EERI student chapter. She receives this award in recognition of her determined advocacy for EERI’s student and younger members by spearheading outreach and mentoring opportunities, and for her leadership within the SLC, YMC, and PPA.
