Julio Ramirez
Purdue University, IN·Engineering
Earthquakes, windstorms, tsunamis and storm surge damage buildings, bridges and lifelines, and the engineering research that reduces that damage depends on equipment no single university can own: shake tables, wind tunnels, wave basins, mobile instruments for surveying disaster sites, and the computing and data systems that tie them together. The Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure, or NHERI, is a distributed national facility that makes these resources available to researchers, combining experimental facilities, cyberinfrastructure, computational modeling and simulation tools, high-performance computing, shared research data, and education and outreach.
- Fields
Engineering
Earth & Environmental Science
Education Research
- Topics
natural hazards engineering
earthquake engineering
wind engineering
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Sep 2027
What they work on
- Convene and support NHERI network governance, including the Council, Network Independent Advisory Committee and User Forum, and update the NHERI Science Plan that sets shared research priorities across earthquake, wind and coastal hazards.
- Operate transparent access procedures and a centralized scheduling platform on the NHERI web portal so researchers can obtain time on shake tables, wind and wave facilities, and post-disaster field reconnaissance resources.
- Run education and workforce programs for the natural hazards community, including a Research Experiences for Undergraduates program, a Summer Institute for early-career researchers and practicing engineers, and monthly graduate student meetings.
- Disseminate findings from earthquake, coastal and wind engineering and the social sciences to accelerate transfer into engineering practice, and build national and international partnerships toward a global multi-hazard research community.
More about the research
This award supports the Network Coordination Office, which runs the network's shared functions and serves as its focal point, working with partner institutions across several states.
Why it matters
Communities exposed to earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis and storm surge depend on engineering knowledge developed with large-scale test facilities and field reconnaissance after disasters. Coordinating access to those resources and moving findings into practice is intended to support civil infrastructure that suffers fewer fatalities, less disruption to societal functions and reduced economic loss, and the award contributes to the national earthquake and windstorm hazard reduction programs.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Joseph Wartman
University of Washington, WA·Engineering
Establish a physics-based framework for measuring earthquake-induced hillslope damage, adding geomechanics to New Zealand data gathered after the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake.
Tara Hutchinson
University of California-San Diego, CA·Engineering
Test individual wall lines and building components of cold-formed steel framing to separate how designated shear walls, gravity walls, finishes and partitions each resist earthquake loads.
Hyoungsu Park
University of Hawaii at Manoa, HI·Engineering
Measure how tsunami-driven debris damming increases forces on the first-floor columns of elevated structures, using experiments in the large wave flume at the Oregon State University NHERI facility.
The school
Purdue University: 43 labs on PI Pages, $932M a year on research, 833 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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