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 is the current Vice President for the EERI BC Board of Directors. She has been volunteering her time with EERI since graduating from the University of British Columbia in 2017. Monrit is a Structural Engineer currently with the City of Vancouver in their Structures Team. Prior to this, Monrit spent 6+ years as a Project Engineer with RJC Engineers. Throughout her career, Monrit has focussed on seismic risk reduction and promoting performance-based upgrades and retrofits of existing structures. She is passionate about earthquake engineering and is currently part of several working groups to create post earthquake response plans throughout British Columbia. Monrit has also worked on conducting seismic risk assessments to review targets for functional recovery. |
| Dan is a Senior Geotechnical Engineer in Ecora’s Vancouver office with over 20 years of consulting experience. He 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 Ecora 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. |
| Behzad Hassani is an engineering seismologist with more than 15 years of experience in seismic hazard analysis. He earned his PhD in geophysics from the University of Western Ontario in 2016. He is currently working at BC Hydro as a specialist engineer, focusing on site-specific seismic hazard analysis for critical facilities. |
| Carlos Molina Hutt is Assistant Professor of Structural and Earthquake Engineering in the Civil Engineering Department at the University of British Columbia, where he leads the Engineering for Seismic Resilience Laboratory (ESR Lab). Their work focuses on the development of methodological approaches to assess seismic risk in buildings and its implications on urban resilience, and on the translation of this knowledge into tools and information for use by practicing engineers, seismic planners and policy makers. Carlos is a registered Professional Engineer in British Columbia (PEng) in Canada and in the State of California (PE) in the US. He is also a Chartered Engineer (CEng) Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in the UK. Carlos has experience as an independent consultant and has worked for civil engineering design firms, the humanitarian sector and the insurance and reinsurance sectors. He also provides structural engineering expertise to the European Union and the United Nations and has deployment experience as a technical expert following damaging earthquakes, including Mexico in 2017 and Ecuador in 2016. In 2019, Carlos received the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) – Shah Family Innovation Prize, which rewards younger professionals and academics for creativity, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit in the field of earthquake risk mitigation and management. |
| Mujib Rahman is working as a Senior Integrity Engineer at FortisBC Energy Inc. and has over 30+ years of experience in construction, operation and maintenance of new and existing municipal infrastructures including project management experience. At FortisBC, Mujib works in System Integrity Department and is responsible for developing, planning, implementing, and managing Geohazards Management program of the company of Geohazards Management Program including seismic hazards management program. In addition, he is responsible for monitoring all blasting activities in the vicinity of Gas assets, reviewing, and providing approval of blasting applications near FortisBC gas assets. On behalf of System Integrity department, he also works as Project Engineer to select major projects e.g., Eagle Mountain Pipeline and is responsible for providing Geohazards oversight supports to the Project Team for ensuring the design and construction meets relevant codes, standards and System Integrity requirements and practices. Mujib has worked for Metro Vancouver as a Project Engineer; previously, he worked for Klohn Crippen Berger Ltd at Highland Valley Copper Mine as a Geotechnical Engineer and at AMEC-Earth and Environmental (now WSP) as Materials Consultant. He brings significant overseas and management experience of large complex projects to his position. Overseas projects experience includes being team lead for joint projects with the Corps of Engineers, US Army Pacific, at Military Engineering Service, Bangladesh Army and with the Kuwait Army in re-construction and demining operation and disposal of Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) in Kuwait after the Gulf War 1991 and have hands-on experience of conducting large-scale blasting activities. |
| 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. |
