Anne Kiremidjian
Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Stanford University

Current risk and resilience assessment methodologies consider the current state of structures, infrastructure, social and economic conditions. Our existing structures and infrastructure are continuously deteriorating, while the urban landscape is constantly changing and growing exponentially.  In this presentation the dynamic components of risk assessment are identified and modeled as they pertain to earthquake hazards. Examples of fragility function development for deteriorating structures and incremental structural expansion are presented illustrating the increase in their respective vulnerability. Time-dependent risk forecasts for Kathmandu are used to discuss resilience options under various social and economic constraints.

Professor Anne S. Kiremidjian has been on the faculty at Stanford in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department since 1978 where she teaches courses in structural analysis, earthquake hazard and risk analysis, structural reliability analysis and decision theory.  Her research over the years has focused on all aspects of earthquake hazard and loss estimation, regional risk assessment, risk analysis of transportation systems, damage detection algorithms, wireless sensor development and structural sensing system design.  From 1987 to 2002 she also served as the Director and Co-Director of the John A. Blume Earthquake Engineering Center at Stanford University.  Dr. Kiremidjian received her B.S. degree from Columbia University in Civil Engineering and her M.S. and Ph. D. degrees from Stanford University in Structural Engineering.