Disasters are steadily increasing in severity and frequency as cities become larger, denser, and more interconnected. The Disaster Risk Analysis Lab's goal is to extend the limits of what is feasible with catastrophe modeling and collaborate synergistically with researchers within and outside civil engineering to bring a new understanding of disaster risk in cities. We combine rigorous uncertainty quantification methods, structural modeling, and optimization techniques to elucidate the impact of extreme events such as earthquakes and hurricanes on urban systems and strategize solutions for urban resilience.

 

The Disaster Risk Analysis Lab is directed by Dr. Luis Ceferino, who has been an Assistant Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of California, Berkeley since 2024. Previously, Dr. Ceferino was an Assistant Professor in the Civil and Urban Engineering Department and the Center for Urban Science and Progress at NYU from 2021 to 2023.  Before, Dr. Ceferino was a Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow at the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment at Princeton University. He completed his graduate studies in Structural Engineering at the John A. Blume Earthquake Engineering Center at Stanford University (M.S. in 2014 and Ph.D. in 2019) and his undergraduate studies in Civil Engineering at the Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería in Lima, Peru (B.S. in 2011).