The chair of the UCLA civil and environmental engineering department is leading a U.S. team traveling to Italy this weekend to work with Italian scientists on research into the destructive earthquakes that hit in August.

2015-Headshot-StewartJonathan P. Stewart, professor in the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, leaves Saturday for central Italy to lead the research team from the Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance Association. The team will investigate geotechnical and geological aspects of the earthquake sequence that occurred between August 24 and August 29.

The team, including postdoctoral scholar Paolo Zimmaro, adjunct professor Robert Kayen, and former visiting scholars Giuseppe Lanzo and Giuseppe Scasserra, will work in close collaboration with Italian engineers and scientists, some of whom have already deployed to the affected region and are collecting perishable data. The research is supported by the National Science Foundation and the B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences at UCLA. After the field investigation is complete, observations and findings will be posted on the GEER website.

Stewart answered some questions before traveling to Italy with the team. Read more here: http://universityofcalifornia.edu/news/ucla-civil-engineer-lead-italy-earthquake-research-team