Committee members

Dr Damian Grant

Chair

Damian Grant is an Associate Director in Arup and Seismic Skills Leader for the UK, India, Middle East and Africa region. He is a structural earthquake engineer with experience in the design and analysis of tall buildings, bridges, offshore platforms and other structures under seismic action. He is interested in all aspects of earthquake engineering, seismic design, analysis, risk assessment and code development. Dr Grant has edited the SECED Newsletter since 2012, and in 2020 he co-authored the 4th edition of Earthquake Design Practice for Buildings with ICE Publishing.

Dr Barnali Ghosh

Vice Chair

Barnali Ghosh is a Technical Director at Mott MacDonald (London) and a Fellow at Institute of Civil Engineer (FICE). She is a chartered civil engineer with specialization in Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering. She was recently selected among the top 50 women in engineering in UK in 2020. She is the International Winner of 2017 Shamsher Prakash Award for Excellence in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering Practice. During her long career, she has acted as a seismic designer and reviewer for high-profile projects around the world. She has been propagating sustainable solutions for developing countries which have wide social outcomes. She remains connected to the academic world as a Royal Academy Visiting Professor at Cambridge University where she teaches Geo Seismic Engineering. 

Mr Andreas H Nielsen

Immediate Past Chair

Andreas H Nielsen is an Associate Director with AtkinsRéalis in Glasgow. His experience includes seismic hazard and engineering, soil-structure interaction, blast, impact and design of steel and reinforced concrete structures to resist dynamic effects. He has developed advanced methods for seismic analysis, and has published several papers and presentations on various topics in earthquake engineering. He is the current Chair of the Structural Dynamics Global Technical Network in AtkinsRéalis. He is a past Chair of SECED and a frequent guest lecturer in the Earthquake Engineering module at Heriot-Watt University.

Dr Guillermo Aldama-Bustos

Guillermo Aldama-Bustos has worked as a geotechnical earthquake engineer/engineering seismologist at Jacobs (previously CH2M and Halcrow) since completing his PhD in 2009 at Imperial College. During his PhD he focused on the area of seismic hazard analysis, with particular interest on regions with low to very low seismicity. At Jacobs, Guillermo has been involved as seismic hazard analyst and geotechnical earthquake engineer in several major projects around the world involving the design of ports, bridges, off-shore oil developments and dams amongst others. He actively promotes developments in his specialist field both through his job and through his continued research interests, especially in the area of seismic hazard analysis. Guillermo’s main areas of interest are: probabilistic seismic hazard analysis, site-response analysis, liquefaction assessment and the seismic design of geotechnical structures.

Dr Fabio Freddi

Elected Member

Fabio Freddi is a Lecturer in Structural Design and the Programme Director of the MSc Earthquake Engineering with Disaster Management at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering (CEGE) of University College London (UCL). Prior to joining UCL, he worked as Marie-Curie Fellowship at the University of Warwick (UK), as a Post-Doctoral researcher at the University of Trento (Italy), as a research fellow at the University of Camerino (Italy), and as visiting scholar at Rice University (Houston, TX, USA). He earned his PhD in Structural and Infrastructural Engineering at the University of Ancona (Italy). His research focuses on leading-edge structural engineering and the response of structures to extreme loads, including Earthquake Engineering and Structural Robustness. His research integrates structural modelling, computational techniques, large-scale experimental testing and probabilistic concepts into a coherent framework for the performance evaluation and design of innovative structures chasing the urgent needs of modern societies for resilience and sustainability. His research is supported by national and international funding bodies, and he has led collaborations with several universities, industries, and organisations globally, including in China, India, Chile, Italy, and the US.

Dr Christian Màlaga-Chuquitaype

Elected Member

Christian Màlaga-Chuquitaype is a researcher, engineer, and educator currently working as Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College London where he leads the Emerging Structural Technologies Research Group and is Director of Undergraduate Admissions. His research is centred on improving the response of structures and infrastructure systems to short-term and long-term stressors through emerging structural technologies. Of particular interest are engineering problems arising in extreme or hostile environments such as earthquakes and extra-terrestrial settings; including the development, design, optimization and implementation of passive, semi-active and other protective strategies. His research has received several prizes including the Structures Best Research Paper Prize from the Institution of Structural Engineers, the Tso Kung Hsieh Research Award from the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Unwin Prize from Imperial College London.

 Dr Way Way Sim

 Elected Member

Way Way is a Chartered Geotechnical Engineer and UK Registered Ground Engineering Adviser with 15 years of experience in research and industry. She has always had a keen interest in historical seismicity and seismic design and completed her MSc in Soil Mechanics and Engineering Seismology from Imperial College in 2006 with a dissertation on historical seismicity of Mozambique. She then went on to study at the University of Tokyo for her PhD examining the response of buried pipelines crossing active faults through 1G model shaking table tests. Way Way’s main area of expertise is advanced geotechnical laboratory testing, including apparatus design, scheduling and interpretation and have extensive experience in advising on appropriate laboratory testing schemes and interpretation of geotechnical testing from soft soils to rock for infrastructure projects ranging from nuclear facilities to transportation. Way Way is currently the Deputy Chair of the Editorial Panel for Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Geotechnical Engineering.

Mr Francesco Morfuni

Elected Member

Francesco is currently working as a Senior Chartered Engineer at Atkins. He gained his MEng in Civil & Structural Engineering from Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, and later his MSc in Earthquake Engineering with Disaster Management from the University College of London. Over the years at Atkins, Francesco has developed his expertise in the seismic design and assessment of nuclear-critical facilities, with a special interest in advanced non-linear modelling techniques and design of seismic protection devices, including isolators and buckling-restrained braces. Francesco is also accredited as Structural Engineer in Italy (CNI) and has previously served as Chair of the ICE Bristol & Bath Young Committee.

Mr Mark Scorer

Elected Member

Mark Scorer is a Chief Engineer working for AtkinsRéalis in the Ground Engineering Team as the Discipline Lead for Seismic Geotechnics and Market Sector Lead in Nuclear and Defence. He has fourteen years’ experience working on and managing a range of sensitive projects in the oil & gas, nuclear, defence, dams and building development sectors both in the UK and internationally. Mark leads a team of more than 20+ specialists with a special interest in earthquake engineering and international development. He is also a qualified Urban Search and Rescue Engineer with the UK charity SARAID and their Engineering Training and International Development Officer.

Dr Ming Tan

Elected Member

Ming is the Technical Excellence Lead for Nuclear at Mott MacDonald, responsible for driving the professional excellence and innovation strategies in the Nuclear sector. He has extensive experience in the field of seismic analysis and design, blast protective design and aircraft / vehicular impact assessments. Ming is also leading the Advanced Analysis team within Mott MacDonald nuclear division specialising in dynamic analysis of civil engineering structures against extreme natural and man-made hazards, complex finite element and explicit analyses, as well as seismic risk/fragility studies. 

 Mr Brian Young

 Elected Member

Brian Young is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers and is the Lead Technical Authority for Civil, Structural & Architecture at AWE. He has 25 years of experience in the design, assessment, construction and testing of structures to resist explosion effects for a range of applications. Since joining AWE in 2009, he has developed a keen interest in earthquake engineering, which resulted in completion of an MSc in this subject at Imperial College London in 2021. He is currently the treasurer for SECED.

Dr David Hawthorn

BGS Representative

David Hawthorn is a seismologist with the British Geological Survey. He has more than a decade of experience in onshore passive seismic data acquisition around the world for a variety of governmental, private and academic groups and including site specific monitoring of critical infrastructure. His current role is the management of the BGS’s seismic network of approximately 100 stations across in the UK.

Maria Liapopolou

Young Members Sub-Committee Representative

Maria is a Research Associate at the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on understanding current practice in structural and construction engineering. Before that, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Surrey and Imperial College London, investigating the response of reinforced concrete structures to extreme loading and heritage masonry structures. She holds an MEng (Hons) in Civil Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and an MSc (Dist) and a PhD in Earthquake Engineering from Imperial College London. During her PhD, she developed predictive models for the collapse of structures under realistic earthquake loading. She also has teaching experience as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at Imperial and as a supervisor at St John’s and Pembroke College at Cambridge, and she is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Mr Swanand Patil

IStructE Representative

Swanand is a structural engineer at COWI UK, with experience in the design and assessment of variety of structures, especially bridges. In his previous roles, he conducted seismic assessments, ambient vibration-based health monitoring, and detailed designs for major infrastructure projects in Canada, the UK, and India. Swanand holds a Master of Applied Science from the University of British Columbia, where his research focused on the seismic response of bridges subjected to stochastic ground motions. Prior to that, at IIT Roorkee, he published research on the seismic retrofit of framed structures using supplemental damping. Additionally, Swanand is a panellist on the Institution of Structural Engineers' (IStructE) Seismic and Dynamics Events Panel.

Dr Valentina Putrino

EEFIT Representative

Dr Valentina Putrino is currently a Catastrophe Risk Analyst at Ariel Re. She gained her PhD from University College London (UCL) in 2021, focusing on developing a framework for multi-hazard vulnerability assessment of historic masonry structures. She currently holds the position of Immediate Chair of the EEFIT Committee, she is the SECED Representative for the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO) - Committee on Disaster Risk Management (CDRM) – since 2020, and is also the designated liaison member between both SECED and EEFIT committees.

 Mr Ian Smith

 ICE Representative

Ian G Smith is a Chief Engineer in the Civil Infrastructure Division of AtkinsRéalis Design and Engineering. He is a Civil/Structural Engineer experienced in design, analysis and construction across a broad range of projects in the nuclear, highways, water and maritime sectors with particular reference to dynamics, soil-structure interaction and seismic design.

Ms Manuela Daví

Co-opted Member

Manuela is an Associate Director of Geo-Seismic at Jacobs, specialised over her 15+ years working experience in seismic hazard for industrial and safety critical infrastructures and seismic design for a range of structures around the world. In addition to her main area of specialisation, her skills cover geotechnical earthquake assessments such as liquefaction assessment, numerical analyses and vibration impact assessments. Manuela is a Chartered Engineer at the Institution of Civil Engineering and was co-editor of the SECED Newsletter from 2019 to 2021 while being a member of the YMSC. Manuela is currently the SECED Website administrator.

Mr Richard Fowler

Co-opted Member

Richard Fowler is an Earthquake Engineer working for the Office for Nuclear Regulation as a Principal Inspector - Nuclear Safety within the Civil Engineering and External Hazards specialism. He has been with ONR since 2013 and has been working within the nuclear industry since 2006. He continues to lead the ONR assessment of seismic hazard work for new build projects, and is also involved with Generic Design Assessment.

Mr Zygmunt Lubkowski

Co-opted Member

Ziggy Lubkowski is an Associate Director at Arup, and is their geo-seismic skills leader for UK, India and the Middle East. He has carried out geotechnical and seismic design, analysis and assessment for a range of structures in the energy, infrastructure, manufacturing and humanitarian sectors. He has acted as the seismic specialist for major projects such as nuclear plants, major bridges, tunnels, dams, and numerous seismic hazard studies around the world. Ziggy has been Chair of both SECED and EEFIT. In 2009 he won the Shamsher Prakash prize for excellence in practice of geotechnical earthquake engineering. In 2018 he was made a Royal Academy of Engineers Visiting Professor at UCL. Ziggy is responsible for press and social media communications for SECED.