Peter Wood (President)
Emergency Management Advisor
Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management, Wellington
Elected to Management Committee 2007
Peter is an Emergency Management Advisor with the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management, having worked previously with GNS Science and its DSIR predecessors. Peter has 35 years experience in research, consulting, and policy development on natural hazard mitigation and emergency management. He has contributed to crustal deformation research in New Zealand, California, and Iceland. In New Zealand he has been involved in developing systematic mapping of active faulting, seismic hazard assessments for hydroelectric dams, digital data management, emergency management, and the development of national emergency plans. Peter is an advocate for hazard risk mitigation having had direct experience of or of the response to hazard events that include: Inangahua earthquake NZ 1968; Imperial Valley earthquake California 1979; Edgecumbe earthquake NZ 1987; Spitak earthquake Armenia 1988; Loma Prieta earthquake California 1989. He was co-coordinator for NZ Geological Survey DSIR of the investigation and reporting on the effects of the 1987 Edgecumbe earthquake and compiled the NZ Society for Earthquake Engineering Reconnaissance Team Report on the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, from first hand experience. He has previously served on the NZSEE Management Committee (1989 – 90).
Contact: Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management
president@nzsee.org.nz
Luke Allen
Victoria University, Wellington
Co-opted to the Management Committee in 2009
Luke is a Registered Architect, and currently teaches at Victoria University School of Architecture. He has extensive experience in commercial and public sector projects, including 6 years working for Stephenson&Turner Architects in Wellington.
His areas of interest and study include post-disaster reconstruction, and the implications of earthquakes on urban design. A key area of concern involves the social and psychological aspects of the architecture of post-earthquake reconstruction. This examines the impact of seismic events on communities and seeks to create proposals for architecture, domestic and public, that can address the complex social and psychological conditions created in these situations; and how the reconstruction can assist in minimising the long-term impact of earthquakes on the fabric of affected communities.
Contact: School of Architecture
Victoria University of Wellington
PO Box 600
Wellington 6140
luke.allen@gmx.com
Carl Ashby
Spencer Holmes, Wellington
Elected to Management Committee 2010
Carl is a senior engineer and associate with Spencer Holmes Ltd based in Wellington.
He has 17years experience as a consultant in the design of commercial, residential and industrial buildings, and the project management and construction of local government infrastructure projects.
His interests include performance reviews, upgrade and seismic retrofit of earthquake prone buildings in the Wellington, Masterton and Gisborne regions.
He is involved as a structural advisor and peer reviewer for the Wellington City Council and is involved with the Council’s Earthquake Prone Building screening project encompassing the review of 3600 identified “at risk” buildings in the Wellington area using the NZSEE’s initial evaluation procedure.
Carl is the current Chairman of the Wellington Structural Group and a member of the SESOC Management Committee.
Contact: Spencer Holmes Limited
Level 6/8 Willis Street
Wellington 6011
Phone: +64 4 472 2261
cva@spencerholmes.co.nz Jitendra Bothara
Senior Seismic Engineer, Beca, Wellington.
Elected to Management Committee 2009
Jitendra specialises in seismic risk mitigation. He has a BE from Tribhuvan University, Nepal, and a Masters from the University of Canterbury. For 17 years Jitendra has worked on the development of appropriate technology, capacity building, policy and social intervention for achieving earthquake-resilient construction in developing countries.
Jitendra was a member of the reconnaissance team to the Chamoli earthquake (1999) in India, and worked in Iran and Pakistan after the 2003 (Bam) and 2005 (Kashmir) earthquakes. He is in his second term as an editor of the EERI’s World Housing Encyclopedia (WHE), and chairs their international committee developing a tutorial for Stone Masonry Construction.
Jitendra is one of New Zealand’s most experienced users of the NZSEE’s Initial Evaluation Procedures to identify earthquake-prone buildings.
Contact: Beca Carter Hollings & Ferner Ltd
77 Thorndon Quay, PO Box 3942
Wellington 6140
Phone: +64 4 4715500 ext 4739
Fax: +64 4 496 2536
Jitendra.Bothara@beca.com P Brabhaharan
Technical Leader, Wellington, Partner
Principal, Geotechnical Engineering & Risk
Opus International Consultants, Wellington
Elected to Management Committee in 2007
Brabhaharan is a Technical Leader Wellington and Principal with Opus International Consultants in Wellington and a partner in the company. He provides technical leadership in the Wellington Region of Opus, and leads a team of geotechnical engineers, engineering geologists and risk specialists providing geotechnical and earthquake engineering and infrastructure risk management. He has also led research into earthquake engineering and risk management issues.
Brabhaharan's recent interests include earthquake performance reviews and retrofit for infrastructure, geotechnical and earthquake design for major infrastructure projects, and lifeline risk management. He has developed approaches and applied to the risk management of lifeline networks.
Brabha leads a Society study group on earthquake design of retaining walls, and was part of the Society’s Learning from Earthquakes study team to the Sichuan Provice China affected by the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake. He is also a past member of the New Zealand Geotechnical Society management committee.
Contact: Opus International Consultants
Majestic Centre, 100 Willis St
P O Box 12-003, Wellington
Telephone +64-4-471 7842
p.brabhaharan@opus.co.nz Rajesh Dhakal
Associate Professor University of Canterbury, Christchurch
Elected to Management Committee 2010
Rajesh received his PhD from Tokyo University in 2000. He has structural engineering experience from Nepal, Thailand, Japan and Singapore. Rajesh is on the editorial board of a number of international journals in structural and earthquake engineering. He has published more than 130 technical papers and he is also a past recipient of the EQC-NZSEE Ivan Skinner award and the Otto Glogau award.
Caroline Holden
GNS, Wellington
Elected to Management Committee 2010
Caroline graduated from the Engineering School of Geophysics in Strasbourg (France) in 1999. She completed a PhD in 2004 from the University of Canterbury (New Zealand) on designing a dense strong motion array for a major Alpine fault earthquake. She then did a postdoc at ENSParis (France) on source inversion of major earthquakes.
Caroline has been employed at GNS Science since October 2007, and works on broadband strong motion modeling and kinematic earthquake source studies. She is also currently Secretary of the New Zealand Geophysical Society.
Clark Hyland
Hyland Fatigue + Earthquake Engineering
Elected to Management Committee 2010
Clark completed his BE (Civil) from the University of Auckland in 1984, subsequently a BCom in 1985 and a PhD in Civil Engineering in 2009. He has worked for the Ministry of Works and Development, various Auckland based consulting engineering companies and the NZ Heavy Engineering Research Association (HERA) in the past. Clark is currently employed by a specialist consulting engineer based in Manukau City, focussing on fatigue and earthquake engineering.
Clark has an extensive experience on many structural engineering and earthquake engineering projects worldwide. This included the seismic strengthening of the damaged reinforced concrete Graduate School of Business at Stanford University after the Loma Prieta Earthquake. Clark has participated in various New Zealand Standards committees on steel construction in NZ.
Clark was a member NZAIDNZSEEEENZ emergency response team to Padang, Indonesia in 2009, and the NZSEE Learning From Earthquakes team to Chile in 2010.
Quincy Ma
Lecturer
Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of Auckland
Elected to Management Committee 2008
Quincy is a lecturer at the University of Auckland where he has lectured structural dynamics and structural analysis since 2006. He is experienced in computer simulations of seismic loads on structures as well as static and dynamic experimentations. Quincy currently leads a project developing online hybrid testing capability in Auckland. Quincy received both his BE Hons (Civil) and PhD from the University of Auckland. Quincy's doctoral study investigated the mechanics of rocking structures subjected to ground motion.
He was the recipient of the 2010 NZSEE-EQC Ivan Skinner award for the Advancement of Earthquake Engineering in New Zealand.
Contact: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
The University of Auckland
Private Bag 92019,
Auckland Mail Centre
Auckland, 1142
New Zealand
Phone: +64 9 373 7599 ext 88766
Fax: +64 9 373 7462
q.ma@auckland.ac.nz Stefano Pampanin
Associate Professor in Structural Engineering
University of Canterbury, Christchurch
Re-elected to Management Committee 2011
Stefano received a Laurea (magna cum laude) in Civil Engineering at the University of Pavia in 1997, a Masters in Structural Engineering at University of California at San Diego and a Ph.D. in Earthquake Engineering at the Technical University of Milan in 2000.
His main research interests, as part of several national and international joined programs at UoPavia, UC San Diego and UoCanterbury, include performance-based seismic design of reinforced and prestressed/precast concrete structures, assessment and retrofit of existing buildings as well as high-performance materials for earthquake-resistance and development of multi-storey prestressed timber buildings.
During the revision phase of the Concrete Standard NZS3101:2006, Stefano was main author of the Appendix B, “Special provision for the seismic design of jointed ductile connections” (PRESSS-Technology, based on post-tensioning techniques)
In the past ten years, he is has been an active member of several fib committees on Seismic Design (i.e. WG 7.3&7.4, 7.6) and co-chairman of the WG 7.5 “Seismic Design of Buildings Incorporating High Performance Materials”. In 2003 he was awarded the fib Diploma for Younger Engineers (under 40-years old) in the Category Research.
A member of the NZCS Council since 2003 and of the NZSEE Management Committee since 2005, in the 2006 he was the inaugural recipient of the EQC/NZSEE Ivan Skinner Award “for the advancement of Earthquake Engineering in NZ”.
Stefano is a registered chartered engineer in Italy since 1997 and enjoys occasional involvement as external consultant or peer reviewer in the field of structural/earthquake design and retrofit.
Les Megget
Part time Lecturer, University of Auckland
Bulletin Editor since 1997
Life Member
Les has been Editor of the Society's quarterly Bulletin since 1997, after two earlier periods as Editor. He was convenor of all publications for the 12th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering held in Auckland in 2000.
Les has recently retired as senior lecturer in structural design at Auckland University Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. His specialisations are the seismic design of buildings in reinforced concrete and structural steel and seismic isolation of structures.
Peter Wood (President)
Luke Allen
Carl Ashby
Jitendra Bothara
P Brabhaharan
Rajesh Dhakal
Caroline Holden
Clark Hyland
Quincy Ma
Stefano Pampanin
Les Megget