EERI Central:
The Earthquake Engineering Research Institute is a national, nonprofit, technical society of engineers, geoscientists, architects, planners, public officials, and social scientists. EERI members include researchers, practicing professionals, educators, government officials, and building code regulators.
Please use the following links to become more familiar with EERI:
EERI British Columbia Chapter:
We are the regional chapter of EERI. The Earthquake Engineering Research Institute – British Columbia Chapter is dedicated to reducing the earthquake risk in British Columbia, Canada by advancing the science and practice of earthquake engineering; by improving understanding of the impact of earthquakes on the physical, social, economic, political and cultural environment; and by advocating comprehensive and realistic measures for reducing the harmful effects of earthquakes. You can Use This link to become more familiar with this chapter.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
| Dr. Salman Soleimani-Dashtaki obtained his PhD in civil engineering from the University of British Columbia (2018), working on Seismic Strengthening of Unreinforced Masonry Walls Using Sprayable Ecofriendly Ductile Cementitious Composite (EDCC), and his BASc with a minor degree in commerce from the Sauder School of Business at UBC (2011). He is currently working as a research associate and a sessional lecturer at the civil engineering department of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Dr. Soleimani-Dashtaki has worked on various multi-disciplinary research projects focusing on structural and earthquake engineering as well as high-performance construction materials. During his research career at UBC he has conducted comprehensive experimental programs, jointly between the Earthquake Engineering Research Facility (EERF) and the Sustainable Infrastructure Research Group (SIERA), towards developing practical seismic retrofit strategies for unreinforced masonry (URM) and heritage style structures. He has worked on an innovative UBC developed sprayable composite material, called Ecofriendly Ductile Cementitious Composite (EDCC), and strengthening techniques for seismically retrofitting URM partition walls at BC schools. Dr. Soleimani-Dashtaki has been teaching and co-lecturing undergraduate and graduate level courses at the UBC civil engineering department since 2015. In 2015, he co-initiated the establishment of the campus wide UBC Vancouver Summer Program (VSP) in the civil engineering department, the first unit to host VSP within the faculty of applied science; since then, he has coordinated the program and taught some of the VSP courses offered annually. Dr. Soleimani-Dashtaki is the current president of the British Columbia Chapter of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI); he also served as the president of the UBC EERI Chapter (2013-2018) and has been on the Board of Directors for the BC EERI Chapter since 2018. He has co-chaired four international conferences, organized many technical seminars and workshops, and has served on the scientific committees of various international meetings. He has co-edited four books: Smart & Sustainable Infrastructure: Building a Greener Tomorrow; Approaching Carbon-Neutrality in Resilient Civil Infrastructure; FRC: The Modern Landscape; and Modern Developments in Performance of Structures Under Extreme Loading. He has also authored numerous articles and technical reports on sustainable construction materials, retrofit techniques for unreinforced masonry, materials undergoing extreme loading, structural health monitoring (SHM), ambient vibration techniques, and operational modal analysis. |
| Monrit Gill is the Vice President elect and a Director on the Board of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute’s British Columbia Chapter. She has volunteered with EERI BC for more than a decade, contributing to technical programming, outreach, and strategic initiatives that advance seismic risk reduction and continuing education across the province. In her professional role, Monrit serves as a Senior Structural Engineer with the City of Vancouver, where she oversees the seismic performance and structural stewardship of approximately 700 civic facilities within the Real Estate and Facilities Management (REFM) portfolio. Her work plays a critical role in ensuring the long‑term safety, functionality, and resilience of the city’s public infrastructure. She is currently leading a first‑of‑its‑kind collaboration with the University of British Columbia to develop a comprehensive seismic risk prioritization framework for Vancouver’s civic assets. This initiative is designed to guide evidence‑based investment and support community resilience at a citywide scale. Before joining the City of Vancouver, Monrit began her career as an existing buildings structural engineer with RJC Engineers, where she developed deep expertise in seismic assessment, performance‑based retrofit strategies, and functional recovery planning. She continues to be an advocate for strong partnerships between industry, government, and research, and contributes to several provincial working groups focused on post‑earthquake response and long‑term resilience planning. Across all her work, Monrit is driven by a commitment to reducing seismic risk and advancing practical, collaborative approaches to building safer, more resilient communities. |
| Behzad Hassani, Ph.D., P.Eng. is a specialist engineering seismologist at BC Hydro, Generation Stations Civil Engineering, with over 15 years of experience in seismic hazard analysis. His work focuses on the development of ground motion models for different tectonic settings, site-specific seismic hazard analysis for critical facilities, and the utilization of site-specific ground motion data to characterize non-ergodic site effects. |
| Dan is a Senior Geotechnical Engineer with DMC Engineering Inc. (DMC) based in Vancouver office. He has 25 years of consulting experience and has been on the board of EERI-BC since 2019. He has a bachelors in Civil Engineering from the University of Auckland and a Masters in Civil Engineering from the University of British Columbia in which he focused on geotechnical earthquake engineering.
His passion for earthquake engineering began in 2008 upon moving to Vancouver. In his role at DMC he is involved with liquefaction, site response analysis, lateral spreading assessments, ground motion selection, and ground motion scaling/matching. He enjoys working in multi-disciplinary consulting teams to design seismically resilient infrastructure focusing on the transportation, energy and building sectors. |
| Jose is a structural engineer specializing in seismic design for tall buildings. Passionate about ensuring the safety of structures in seismic-prone areas, Jose recognizes the importance of understanding their seismic response. Shortly after obtaining his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering, he left his hometown of Guayaquil, Ecuador, in 2005 to specialize in earthquake engineering at the University of British Columbia (UBC) under the supervision of Professor Carlos Ventura. He earned his PhD in earthquake engineering from UBC in 2015. Jose first joined EERI in 2005 and actively participated by organizing lecture events and outreach visits to school classrooms, where students would build small-scale models and test them on a portable shake table. In 2022, Jose became a member of the EERI-BC board, continuing to contribute to EERI’s mission of disseminating knowledge in earthquake engineering and fostering a stronger engineering community. |
| Dr. Fei Tong is an Assistant Professor in Structural and Seismic Engineering at the University of Northern British Columbia and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at McMaster University. He is a Professional Engineer registered with Engineers and Geoscientists British Columbia. He earned his PhD in seismic engineering from the University of Toronto and his MSc and BSc degrees in structural engineering from Tsinghua University. After completing his MSc, Dr. Tong gained extensive international industry experience with Ove Arup and Buro Happold in Beijing, Tokyo, and Dubai. He contributed to the design of iconic skyscrapers, pedestrian bridges, and complex structures worldwide, including architecturally unconventional and technically demanding projects that required state-of-the-art structural design, nonlinear dynamic analysis, large-scale experimental validation, expert peer review, and multidisciplinary coordination. This practice background shaped his system-level perspective on seismic design and his interest in connecting research, codes, and professional practice. Dr. Tong's academic work focuses on seismic-resilient structural systems for buildings and infrastructure, with particular emphasis on high-rise buildings, mass timber and hybrid structures, performance-based seismic design, nonlinear numerical modelling, large-scale experimental testing, hybrid simulation, and structural dynamics. His current research develops low-damage and resilient structural systems, including mechanisms for controlling higher-mode effects in high-rise buildings and innovative rocking cross-laminated timber wall systems. In addition to teaching and HQP training, Dr. Tong contributes to professional leadership in earthquake and structural engineering through national design code and standards committees, technical committees, and professional organizations. He serves as a Board Director of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute British Columbia Chapter. |
| Mujib Rahman is working as a Director & Geotechnical Lead, Western Canada, Vancouver CIMA+ and has over 34 years combined international and Canadian experience in geohazard management, slope stability, and terrain assessment of geohazards and project management experience. He has led numerous programs addressing geotechnical risks for utilities, transportation corridors, and municipal infrastructure across British Columbia and Western Canada. At CIMA+, Mujib leads multidisciplinary teams providing slope stability review, landslide risk assessment, and foundation design review for municipal and infrastructure projects. His strong knowledge of Canadian standards, including EGBC quality management guides and geotechnical best practices, ensures that design submissions are reviewed with a focus on safety, constructability, and long-term performance. As the former Geohazards Program Manager at FortisBC, Mujib developed and implemented the utility’s Geohazard Management Program, achieving a 35% cost reduction and 75% increase in inspection coverage through strategic process design. His expertise includes landslide monitoring and mitigation, pipeline integrity assessments, trenchless design support, foundation and retaining wall design, and seismic hazard evaluation. In addition, he was responsible for developing and implementing Geohazards mitigation design of sustainment projects and providing construction oversight to both sustainment and major capital projects ensuring the design and construction meets relevant regulations, codes, and company standards. Previously, Mujib had worked for Metro Vancouver as a Project Engineer; prior to that, he worked for Klohn Crippen Berger Ltd (at Highland Valley Copper Mine) as a Geotechnical Engineer and at AMEC-Earth and Environmental as Materials Consultant. |
| John is a structural engineer with more than 35 years of experience in structural and seismic analysis and the design of infrastructure and buildings. He has worked on new buildings and numerous renovation, retrofit and seismic upgrade projects developing innovative and cost-effective schemes for construction within existing facilities. His projects include several “firsts” and “largest” in Canada: first use of viscous dampers in a seismic upgrade; first base isolated building – a seismic upgrade; first use of external buckling restrained bracing seismic upgrade; largest use of fibre reinforced polymers (FRP) in a seismic upgrade. He has led seismic assessments of hundreds of buildings including being intimately involved for over 15 years on the performance based Seismic Retrofit Guidelines (SRG) for BC school buildings. Further, he has been intimately and extensively involved in implementation of SRG including preparing Seismic Project Identification Reports, Project Definition Reports, and detailed design of more than 60 school seismic upgrades. He has also led seismic upgrades for hospitals, office buildings, and residential buildings, all carried out while keeping the buildings fully functional. For 10 years, John was chair of the Standing Committee on Earthquake Design (SC-ED) regarding earthquake design provisions in the National Building Code of Canada. As a member of SC-ED, he chaired the Working Group for Base Isolation and Supplemental Energy Dissipation that implemented new provisions into 2015 NBCC, and the Task Group for Performance Based and Resilient Design, that implemented new provisions into 2020 NBCC. |
| Jessica holds a Master’s Degree in Planning (MAP) from UBC, with a concentration in Disaster Risk Management and has been working to advance earthquake risk reduction initiatives in Southwest BC for over 15 years. This has included working on a community-wide earthquake risk assessment for the District of North Vancouver (DNV) to better understand end-user needs in relation to risk assessment and modelling, leading the development of the City of Vancouver Earthquake Preparedness Strategy which highlighted the priority need to address existing high-risk buildings, developing holistic and integrated policy recommendations to increase the resilience of both new and existing buildings in the DNV, researching and reporting on the potential application of C-PACE for new and existing buildings in BC to support the evolution of financial instruments required to enhance resilience, and leading on the outreach, engagement and training aspects of the microzonation mapping for the Lower Mainland project. Jessica has served for over 10 years as a Director on the board for EERI BC and acted for several years as the EERI BC representative to the Seismic Safety Council (co-hosted by EMBC and NRCan). She has also acted as the lead organizer for the Understanding Risk BC (urbc.ca) symposiums since 2016. She is familiar with global best practices in assessing climate, natural hazard and disaster risk, reducing it and preparing to respond, recover and build back better. She uses this knowledge of global best practice to inform solutions that are locally-owned and is passionate about building resilience in Southwest BC, the Cascadia bioregion and beyond. |
