Civil and Environmental Engineering Department

University of California, Berkeley

Address: Davis Hall, Room 773, Berkeley, CA 94720

Email: ceferino@berkeley.edu

Twitter @LuchoCeferino, curriculum vitae (10/24)

Azin Ghaffary is an Urban Science Faculty Fellow at NYU CUSP. Before, Azin was an Associate at Exponent Inc., where she worked on developing quantitative risk frameworks for electric assets and investigating construction defects in domestic and international arbitration projects. She obtained her PhD in Structural Engineering from the University of Nevada, Reno (2021), where she focused on advancing the nonlinear design of buildings under wind loads. Azin obtained her Master’s in Earthquake Engineering (2016) and Bachelor’s in Civil and Environmental Engineering (2011) from K.N.Toosi University of Technology in Tehran, Iran. She also worked as a structural engineer in Tehran, designing and conducting seismic assessments of berthing structures.

Prateek Arora is a Ph.D. candidate at the Civil and Urban Engineering Department at NYU's Tandon School of Engineering. He obtained his Master’s in Structural Engineering at Stanford University (April 2020) and Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering at BITS Pilani, India (June 2018). Previously, Prateek worked as a graduate structural engineer in the City of San Francisco. His research interests include hazard risk analysis and utility management in scenarios of extreme events such as earthquakes and hurricanes.

Riccardo Negri is a Ph.D. candidate at the Civil and Urban Engineering Department at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering. He has working experience in structural design and facility management in Italy and in the U.S. Riccardo obtained his Master’s degree in Applied Urban Science and Informatics from NYU’s Center for Urban Science & Progress (2022). He also holds a Master’s (2013) and a Bachelor’s (2011) degree in Civil Engineering, and a specialization in Structural Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, Italy. His research interests lie in evaluating the socio-economic impacts of natural hazards on urban communities, including floods in NYC, and investigating strategies to mitigate infrastructure vulnerabilities.

SoungEil Houng is a Ph.D. student in the Civil and  Environmental Engineering Department at UC Berkeley. He has working experience in seismic hazard analysis for nuclear power plant sites in South Korea. He holds a Master's degree (2013) and a Bachelor's degree (2011) in Earth System Sciences, with a specialization in seismology and geophysics. His research interests include seismic hazard and risk analysis, with a particular focus on developing hazard- and risk-consistent earthquake ground motion generation methodology.

Kexun Li is a Ph.D. student in Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. He earned his Master’s degree (2024) from UC Berkeley and Bachelor’s degree (2023) from Zhejiang University, both in Civil and Environmental Engineering, specializing in structural engineering. His research focuses on seismic hazard analysis and physics-informed neural networks, emphasizing structural dynamics and performance-based design. Kexun aims to integrate advanced computational methods with practical solutions to enhance the resilience and safety of civil infrastructure under extreme conditions.

Sen Yang currently is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Civil Engineering at Tsinghua University. He obtained his Master’s (January 2022) and Bachelor’s degree (June 2019) in Structural Engineering at Tianjin University. His research interests lie in the community disaster resilience and regional disaster analysis, with a particular focus on developing methodologies for rapid assessment of post-hazard damage, optimal decision-making of recovery and emergency response.

We are constantly looking for highly motivated people to join our team. Our research is highly interdisciplinary at the intersection of engineering, urban planning, and emergency medicine with the goal of proposing novel solutions for urban resilience. Explore our website to find out more about our tools and data.  If your research interests intersect with ours, please contact us. Currently, we have open positions for:

​

• Ph.D. Students:  To express your interest, email Prof. Ceferino including your CV and a brief statement on why you are interested in our research lab and apply to the Civil Engineering Ph.D. Program at NYU. Please, find more details about the position on this link.