FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NHERI Virtual Workshop Slated for Early Career Faculty

An overview of NSF-funded natural hazards testing facilities

San Antonio, TX, June 3, 2020 — Early career engineering faculty can discover the research possibilities within the NSF-funded Natural Hazards Engineering Infrastructure, NHERI.

A full day of Zoom presentations will introduce early career faculty to the NHERI facilities, which include UC San Diego’s LH POST, one of the world’s largest outdoor shake tables, and Florida International University’s Wall of Wind, a full-scale, hurricane-wind testing facility.

The NHERI Virtual Workshop for Early Career Faculty takes place Monday, June 29, and runs from 9:00 am to 5:30 pm CDT. The sessions, which are also open to postdocs, graduate students and practitioners, run sequentially — so participants can attend them all.

In the morning, presenters from all eleven NHERI experimental facilities will discuss current and prospective research at their sites. The talks include Q&A sessions.
In the afternoon, NSF Program Director Joy Pauschke will offer tips and strategies for writing successful NSF grant proposals in the field of natural hazards engineering.
The day culminates with a panel of NSF awardees who will discuss their experiences in successful grant-writing and performing research at NHERI facilities.

Participants are urged to visit the NHERI facilities’ websites for background information. The nation-wide, eleven-member network includes a social science research center, a simulation facility, and a cyberinfrastructure — as well as a RAPID reconnaissance facility.

One-on-one meetings

The following day, June 30, workshop participants can schedule one-on-one Zoom meetings with NHERI facility researchers to discuss practical research ideas, details about facility capabilities, and tips for optimal, site-specific research proposals.

The NHERI Virtual Workshop for Early Career Faculty is free, but registration is required. Sign up here: designsafe-ci.org/learning-center/summer-institute/registration/.

Registrants will have the opportunity to sign up for individual research meetings with NHERI facility representatives.

Wood building on LH POST shake table at UC San Diego Building under construction on UC San Diego’s LH POST shake table. (Photo: UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering)

Media contact:

Karina Vielma, Assistant Professor of Engineering Education
University of Texas at San Antonio
Administrator, NHERI Education and Community Outreach
karina.vielma@utsa.edu

About the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure.

Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure, NHERI, is a network of experimental facilities dedicated reducing damage and loss-of-life due to natural hazards such as earthquakes, landslides, windstorms, and tsunamis and storm surge. It is supported by the DesignSafe Cyberinfrastructure. NHERI provides the natural hazards engineering and social science communities with the state-of-the-art resources needed to meet the research challenges of the 21st century.