News

December 2022 - March 2023, HR Wallingford (UK)

I have been involved in a new experimental project at Europe's largest tsunami simulator. MAKEWAVES is a large international collaboration of 20 scientists, engineers, and industry partners across 11 different universities. The research is hosted by HR Wallingford and is led by Professor Tiziana Rossetto (UCL) and Dr David McGovern (LSBU).Together with University of Southampton Individual Project students (Sajagan Varathan and Carlos De Andres Quevedo), we contributed to the design and development of runup tests for understanding the effectiveness of coastal forests against tsunami waves. To read more about it, visit the project website. 

20-29 October 2022, Banda Aceh (Indonesia)

I took part in the EEFIT return mission to Banda Aceh, Indonesia. The team comprised of researchers from University of Plymouth and London Southbank University, as well from the local Indonesian Tsunami and Disaster Mitigation Research Centre (TDMRC). We investigated how a city recovers from an earthquake and tsunami, nearly 20 years on. You can learn more about it by visiting the mission blog website.

27-29 June 2022, Malaga (Spain)

COST Action CA18109 AGITHAR hold a plenary meeting in Malaga. It was the first in-person meeting after the start of the pandemic. There were fruitful discussions on the development of a PTHA/PTRA cookbook for the tsunami risk community. 

16 December 2021

Prof Ian Robertson from University of Hawaii at Mānoa will be visiting the University of Southampton on Thursday 16 December and will give an online talk at 10.30AM GMT. Please click on the link below to join the seminar. 

Link to Ian's talk.

30 July 2021

Together with Dr Richard Boothroyd (University of Glasgow) and Dewi Nurhasanah (Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia), I received a prestigious grant to work on an interdisciplinary climate action research project. The project is titled “Multi-hazard Assessment of Mangroves for Resilience of Coastal Communities in Indonesia (MANGRO-ID)”. This is the outcome of my participation at the Indonesia-UK Workshop on reduction of climate change impact on flood risk in urban areas, organised by University of Greenwich and Universitas Indonesia, and funded by the British Council in the run up to COP26. The project will start in October 2021.

December 2020

Following the earthquake and tsunami in the Aegean Sea on 30 October 2020, I participated in a remote mission organised by UK Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT). I contributed to the integration of tsunami aspects into earthquake reconnaissance forms and assessed the tsunami impact in coastal regions in Turkey and on the Island of Samos (Greece). Preliminary observations were presented in a webinar chaired by Dr Yasemin Aktas. 

17 September 2020

I was invited by Young SECED to give a talk on the latest advances in tsunami engineering, together with Prof Tiziana Rossetto and Dr Marta Del Zoppo (University of Naples). My presentation focused on a novel nonlinear pushover static analysis procedure for the tsunami design of buildings according to the ASCE 7-16 Standard. The webinar was chaired by Valentina Putrino (SECED Young Member Subcommittee Chair). 

14-17 January 2020, Rome (Italy)

COST Action CA18109 AGITHAR hold a working group meeting in Rome. This meeting saw intense collaboration on finalising the first deliverable - a report on research gaps. I contributed to Chapter 3 on current advances and challenges in Probabilistic Tsunami Resarch Assessment (chapter coordinators: Dr Raffaele De Risi and Prof Tiziana Rossetto).

2 December 2019, Brescia (Italy)

I was invited to talk to students at a secondary school in my hometown Brescia (I.C. 'Franchi') about civil engineering, my education path and my current research activities.

15-16 July 2019, Male (Maldives)

Prof Tiziana Rossetto and I took part in two Building Regulatory Capacity Assessment (BRCA) Action Planning Workshops in collaboration with the World Bank local partners from the University of Moratuwa in Sri Lanka, and Riyan Private Limited in the Maldives. These workshops were hosted by the Governments of Sri Lanka and Maldives. More information here and here.

9 May 2019, Tofino, BC (Canada)

I gave a presentation on tsunami building vulnerability in a workshop titled ‘Ground Truthing: moving from flood risk to adaptation in Tofino'. This saw the active engagement of the local community, including the mayor and council leaders, planners, emergency officers, local First Nations, and members of the business community. More details here.

April 2019, Colombo and Southern Province, Sri Lanka

A team of researchers from UCL EPICentre (Dr David Robinson, PhD student Juan Palomino and myself) in collaboration with University of Moratuwa Sri Lanka carried out a survey of hospitals along the South Coast of Sri Lanka, which was severely hit by the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. More information here.

June 2018, Umbria and Marche, Italy

As part of the MSc in Earthquake Engineering with Disaster Management (Programme Director: Dr Carmine Galasso), a week-long field trip was organised to Central Italy, which recently suffered from damaging earthquakes, to observe the extent of the destruction and the latest structural strengthening techniques. I helped organising and delivering the fieldtrip led by Dr. Fabio Freddi and Valentina Putrino.  The UCL team visited Camerino, Norcia, Amatrice and L'Aquila and also took part in a joint research workshop with the University of Camerino. More info here. 

April 2017, London

I was invited to give a talk titled “Seismic resilience: how to minimise damage in steel structures” to 1st Young Engineers’ Conference, Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE). The conference was created to help develop young engineers providing them with a platform for exploring critical issues. 

December 2016, Hong Kong

I won the "Best Steel Structures" paper award at the 8th International Conference on Steel and Aluminium Structures (ICSAS), University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. I was first ranked in the steel category, among a total of 152 conference contributions from 29 countries and 6 continents. 

April 2016, London

I won the the best poster presentation award at the Young Researchers’ Conference 2016. The 18th Young Researchers’ Conference took place at the Institution of Structural Engineers HQ in London. My poster presentation was titled: ‘Experimental validation of a novel seismic-resistant steel frame for damage minimisation’.