Yousef Bozorgnia (left) with UCLA Chancellor Gene Block (middle) and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Darnell Hunt (right) at the award ceremony
(Credit: Michael Troxell)
Original article published on UCLA Newsroom
Photo courtesy of UCLA Samueli
On June 2nd, three faculty members will be honored with UCLA Public Impact Research Awards at the chancellor’s residence for their sustained efforts to translate their research into positive public action. The awards, presented annually by the UCLA Office of Research and Creative Activities, will be accompanied by $15,000 for each of the two research projects being recognized.
Yousef Bozorgnia
Professor of civil and environmental engineering
Bozorgnia is widely recognized for his extensive contributions to seismic engineering and the quantification of earthquake hazards. He has been the principal investigator on a number of large collaborative efforts to quantify ground movements during earthquakes, and as director of the Natural Hazards Risk and Resiliency Research Center has boosted the resilience of communities by helping to improve the ability of their infrastructure to withstand natural disasters.
Findings from research studies by Bozorgnia and his colleagues used worldwide in seismic analysis and for the resilient design of a wide spectrum of structures, from single-family homes and large buildings to bridges, power plants and dams. His collaborative community-based research projects have impacted earthquake design in every earthquake-prone region of the U.S., and the models he and his colleagues have developed to estimate ground shaking have been adopted by the U.S. Geological Survey to generate seismic hazard maps for the entire country.
A fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers since 1988, Bozorgnia was awarded the prestigious Bruce Bolt Medal — given annually by the Consortium of Strong Motion Observation Systems, the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute and the Seismological Society of America — in 2019 for his contributions to the field of earthquake engineering.
“I love to solve real-world problems. Working collaboratively with colleagues inside and outside academia is an important element of carrying out research that affects communities,” he said. “I am so thankful for this award. It gives me more energy to try to solve impactful earthquake engineering problems.”
Link to original article “UCLA honors 3 professors whose research has benefited society” from the UCLA Newsroom: https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/ucla-honors-professors-whose-research-has-benefited-society