The Grainger College of Engineering

MAE Center Researchers to Visit Haiti

2/19/2010

Professor Amr S. Elnashai, head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), and graduate student Amanda L. Lewis will travel to Haiti Feb. 28-March 6 as part of a Mid-America Earthquake (MAE) Center field reconnaissance team. 

Written by

Professor Amr S. Elnashai, head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), and graduate student Amanda L. Lewis will travel to Haiti Feb. 28-March 6 as part of a Mid-America Earthquake (MAE) Center field reconnaissance team. 

 

Amr Elnashai
Amr Elnashai

“The goal is to collect information, study the impact and determine what could have been done to reduce the impact,” explained Elnashai, the William J. and Elaine F. Hall Endowed Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Illinois.

 

The group is supported by the National Science Foundation through a program of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) called Learning from Earthquakes. Georgia Tech Professor Reginald DesRoches, an earthquake engineer and native of Haiti, will lead the team of 15 researchers, which includes seismologists, structural and geotechnical earthquake engineers, and social scientists. The EERI is a national, nonprofit technical society devoted to reducing earthquake risk through a broad-based approach that examines the impact of earthquakes from many perspectives.

“We look at the impact across the board from infrastructure to social consequences to rescue and emergency response—planning for earthquakes from seismology to temporary housing,” Elnashai added.

Amanda Lewis
Amanda Lewis

Lewis, a master’s student in structural engineering, is excited about the opportunity to see the effects of a major earthquake in person.

“I’m not really sure what to expect, but I think that in order to understand earthquakes, you have to experience their impacts, not only on buildings and lifelines, but also on society,” she said.  “There are some things you can only learn in the field, and I am really looking forward to taking part in my first field mission.”

Because such investigations are so critical to the understanding of earthquakes, the MAE Center is planning another site visit to Haiti in a few months that would include 10-15 more Illinois students, Elnashai said.

Photo added 3/10/10: Members of the MAE Center team in Port-au-Prince (l to r) Jean Robert Michaud; Ayhan Irfanoglu; Amanda Lewis; Pierre, the team's driver; and Amr Elnashai.
Photo added 3/10/10: Members of the MAE Center team in Port-au-Prince (l to r) Jean Robert Michaud; Ayhan Irfanoglu; Amanda Lewis; Pierre, the team's driver; and Amr Elnashai.


Earlier this month, CEE assistant professor Scott Olson traveled to Haiti as a member of the Geo-engineering Extreme Events Reconnaissance (GEER) team that studied ground failures such as liquefaction and landslides during the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that stuck on January 12.
___________________

Contact: Amr Elnashai, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 217/265-5497.

Writer: Celeste Arbogast Bragorgos, director of communications, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 217/333-6955.

If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Rick Kubetz, Engineering Communications Office, 217/244-7716, editor.

 

Share this story

This story was published February 19, 2010.