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Subcommittees

EERI SESI Subcommittees are open to any EERI member, and are tasked to achieve various actions and activities of the program. Each Subcommittee will be lead by a Subcommittee Chair. If you are interested in joining a subcommittee, please email the associated Chair listed below.

Safety Screening, Inventory, and Evaluation of Schools

Chair: Ken Goettel Members: David Bonowitz, Phil Gould, Karen Izumoto, Heidi Tremayne Charge: Facilitate and encourage implementation of risk reduction measures by developing and helping to carry out stepwise screening methodologies to identify school buildings with the highest seismic risk efficiently while minimizing the effort and expense for school districts.

Products:

Classroom Education and Outreach

Co-Chair: Thalia Anagnos Co-Chair: Lelli Van Den Einde Members: Vince Pericoli, Mary Fatih Silva, Heidi Tremayne, Eddie Vega, Ivan Wong, James Mallard, Alex Lee, Zoe Yin, Cindy Qian, Zahraa Saiyed, Barbara Simpson  Charge: Use education in the classroom to create on ongoing dialog with parents, teachers, and administrators and to develop advocates for earthquake school safety. Bring together EERI regional and student chapters to collaborate on delivering the activities and serving as expert resources for stakeholders.

Visit the Classroom Education and Outreach website for more information

Tsunami Mitigation for Schools

Chair: Chair pending, Yumei Wang and Heidi Tremayne are the  current contacts Members: Veronica Cedillos, Greg Deierlein, Lori Dengler, Doug Dougherty, Lesley Ewing, Hermann Fritz, Sue Graves, Karen Izumoto, Manuel Lugo, Kevin Miller, Cindy Pridmore, Jay Raskin, Kevin Richards, Althea Rizzo, Ian Robertson, Zahraa Saiyed, John Schelling, Jeri Siegel, Tom Tobin, Heidi Tremayne, Yumei Wang, Jay Wilson, Rick Wilson, Harry Yeh Charge: Support schools with tsunami hazard by provide them access to experts and sharing best practices for tsunami risk mitigation. Products:

Code Updating and Improvements

Chair: Rob Jackson Members: Bill Holmes, Karen Izumoto, Mike Mahoney (ex officio), Sissy Nikolaou, Gary Patterson, Menzer Pehlivan, Alissa Tan, Heidi Tremayne, Barry Welliver, Guillermo Diaz-Fanas Charge: Advocate for code improvements, refinement and/or implementation practices that will enhance school safety and use after major earthquakes.

Safety Advocacy and Messaging

Chair: Ivan Wong Members: Lucy Arendt, Heidi Tremayne, Barry Welliver Charge: Bridge the communication gap between technical professionals and non-technical partners and stakeholders interested in earthquake risk reduction for schools.

To initiate action at a local grassroots level, SESI has developed a template PowerPoint that can be presented by EERI members and other school safety advocates to parent organizations, school boards, community leaders and decision-makers, and local and state agencies.  The purpose of the PowerPoint is to describe the school safety issues of the local community. The PowerPoint will introduce EERI and SESI, describe what the specific earthquake hazard and school vulnerability issues are in the community, what can happen in an earthquake, which types of buildings are most vulnerable (such as URM), the impact and risk of nonstructural component failures, disruption to the community due to damaged schools, and what steps can be taken to improve school safety.  SESI can provide resources and assistance to any school safety advocate. It is our hope that EERI members and school safety advocates who are aware of school safety issues in their local community will use this PowerPoint to initiate meaningful communication with the appropriate decision-makers. Once that communication link has been established, a core group of advocates can assist in moving the process forward with assistance from SESI.

SESI Promoting Safe Buildings for Our Schoolchildren – Powerpoint Template [PPT]