List of Contributors

The following practitioners and academics contributed to this book. For volunteering your time and sharing your expertise, we thank you.

Contributor Section(s) Biography Anirudh Rao 1 Anirudh Rao is a Senior Seismic Risk Modeller at the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) Foundation in Pavia, Italy. At GEM, Anirudh works on the development and validation of earthquake risk models, as well as on the architecture and scientific testing of the risk calculators of the OpenQuake engine. He has experience working in several countries worldwide in collaboration with universities, local and national governmental institutions, private sector engineering and (re)insurance companies, and multilateral agencies such as UNDRR, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, towards more robust earthquake risk assessment and risk-informed decision-making. Anirudh obtained his BTech (2008) in Civil Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B). He earned his MS in Structural Engineering (2010) and PhD in Earthquake Engineering (2014) at Stanford University. Catalina Yepes 1 Catalina Yepes Estrada is a Senior Seismic Risk Modeller at the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) Foundation in Pavia, Italy. At GEM, Catalina is involved in developing, maintaining and testing GEM's Global Exposure Model, Global Risk Model and the OpenQuake engine. With her experience working across multiple countries, Catalina has led several national and international projects related to earthquake risk assessment, seismic risk mitigation and facilitating risk-informed decision-making processes. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering (2008) and a Master's degree in Structural Engineering (2009) from the National University of Colombia. Additionally, she completed her Master's degree in Earthquake Engineering and Seismology at the University of Pavia, Italy (ROSE School, 2013). Vitor Silva 1 Vitor Silva is the Head of Risk Engineering at the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) Foundation and a Principal Investigator at the University of Aveiro. He leads studies in structural vulnerability and probabilistic seismic risk assessment in dozens of countries, and participates in a multitude of international, European and regional projects. His research covers the assessment of earthquake impact at the global scale, incorporation of the temporal component in earthquake risk and exploration of machine learning technology in the assessment of earthquake hazard, vulnerability and exposure. He has authored more than 100 publications in international peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings and was the recipient of the Shah Family Innovation Award by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute in 2018, the Natural Hazards Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award by the European Geosciences Union in 2020 and Earthquake Spectra Outstanding Paper Award in 2021. Charles K Huyck 2 Charles K. Huyck is a geographer with over 30 years of experience integrating geospatial technologies into multi-hazard risk assessment frameworks to protect people, infrastructure and economies worldwide. Since co-founding ImageCat in 2000, he has led a team of engineers, scientists and programmers to pioneer new approaches to assess risk. Marina Mendoza 2 Dr. Marina T. Mendoza is a civil engineer and urban planner at ImageCat with over a decade of experience in disaster risk management for floods, wildfires, earthquakes and other hazards. She has contributed to national climate adaptation plans, developed vulnerability indices and participated in the creation of tools to model economic disruption and recovery following natural hazards. Christophe Christianen 1 Christophe Christianen leads a research programme on 'spatial finance' at the University of Oxford, leveraging geospatial technologies and data science for applications in sustainable finance. Christophe has a background in finance, engineering and environmental economics and experience in translating academic sustainability insights into practice. Rashmin Gunasekera 3 Rashmin Gunasekera is a Senior Disaster Risk Management Specialist working at the World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) in Washington, DC. Rashmin has over 20 years of work experience in disaster risk quantification, extending to the public sector, re/insurance industry and academia. He has also presented and published innovative research and operations papers on Disaster Risk Management, and some have revolutionised the World Bank's disaster response strategy and fast-tracked post-disaster emergency operations. He currently holds an honorary lectureship at University College London (UCL) and has an MPhil in GIS and Remote Sensing (University of Cambridge, UK) and a PhD in earthquake seismology (University of Durham, UK). Harriette Stone 3 Harriette Stone is a chartered civil engineer with specialisms in disaster risk management and resilient infrastructure. She currently works as a Senior Disaster Risk Management Consultant at GFDRR and with the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure and has previously worked at the Department for International Development of the UK Government and at Arup. She holds an Engineering Doctorate and a Master of Research from University College London, a Master of Sciences in Structural Engineering from the University of Surrey, and a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) from the University of Exeter. Antonis Pomonis 3 Antonios Pomonis is a structural engineer with an MSc in Earthquake Engineering (Hokkaido University, Japan, 1987). His career of over 35 years includes time as a Research Associate at the University of Cambridge, as the Chairman of the Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team (Institution of Structural Engineers, UK), as a director of Cambridge Architectural Research Ltd and as a project manager of the Global Earthquake Model's Earthquake Consequences database (GEMECD). Since 2013, he has been consulting with the World Bank on natural hazard risk modelling, exposure and vulnerability of the built environment and rapid post-disaster damage assessments. James Daniell 3 James Daniell is a civil/structural engineer, geophysicist and geologist, specialising for nearly two decades in global stochastic and real-time financial, social and environmental risk modelling and software packages for insurance, companies and governments; as well as global data analytics, historic data, exposure, engineering and socioeconomic models. He currently works on global projects as a Lead Disaster Risk Management consultant with the World Bank GFDRR and as a founder and CEO (Analytics) at Risklayer GmbH, a risk modelling company based out of Karlsruhe, Germany. He holds a doctoral degree (Dr.-Ing) in Engineering from KIT in Germany where he is also a research scientist, a Master's degree in Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Seismology from UJF Grenoble in France and University of Pavia in Italy and an Honours in Civil/Structural Engineering and a BSc (Geology/Geophysics) from the University of Adelaide in Australia, where he is also a Professor (adjunct). Bramka Arga Jafino 3 Bramka Arga Jafino is a Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Specialist working for the Infrastructure Resilience Policy and Finance Unit for the South Asia Region at the World Bank. Bramka supports DRM investment lending and operations in Bangladesh and Bhutan, focusing on coastal and flood resilience, multi-hazard decision support system and refugee crisis responses. Bramka also supports global analytics with the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), particularly looking at socio-economic resilience to disasters. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy and a Master's degree in Engineering and Policy Analysis from Delft University of Technology. Before joining the World Bank, Bramka worked as an advisor for flood and infrastructure impact assessment at Deltares, the Netherlands. Gonzalo F. Pita Gonzalo F. Pita is a faculty lead and director of the MSc in Systems Engineering at the Department of Civil and Systems Engineering, Johns Hopkins University. He is also a senior consultant at the World Bank at Washington, DC. His work is on disaster risk management and risk-based asset management systems. He holds a BS in Civil Engineering from the Universidad Tecnológica Nacional; an MS in Structural Dynamics, from the Universidad Nacional de Cordoba; and a PhD in Natural Risk Modelling from Florida Institute of Technology. Michal Lörinc 4 Michal Lörinc leads the Catastrophe Insight team at Aon Impact Forecasting, a team of experts that works towards a better understanding of both long-term and real-time impacts of natural disasters. One of the responsibilities is managing the Automated Event Response solutions, which couple...