PEER Committees

February 19, 2020

PEER has recently formed three committees comprised of researchers and industry practitioners. The three committees are the Research Committee, Industry Advisory Board, and Resource identification Committee. The committees and their charges are presented below, and these three committees' ex-officio members are: Norm Abrahamson, Leader of PEER Lifelines Research Program; Amarnath Kasalanati, PEER Associate Director; Khalid Mosalam, PEER Director; Tom Shantz, Manager of PEER funding from Caltrans.

On January 15, 2020, these three committees met in a single meeting and reviewed committee charges, their committees’ interaction with each other, approaches to ensure continuity of the committees, and logistics including the number and coordination of meetings and selection of committee chairs. With contributions from the members of all committees, discussion topics included strategies, opportunities and value propositions on increasing PEER resources; project types (key large projects vs conventional small projects); inclusion of other hazards; and interactions and collaborations with government entities, other local and international research centers, private sector companies.

Research Committee - sets research agenda based on PEER’s vision; works with stakeholders and industry partners to identify community needs and integrates them into the research plan; makes recommendations for funding grants; develops the topics and timeline for Request for Proposals (RFP) and reviews and evaluates proposals or identifies a pool of reviewers.

Pedro Arduino, University of Washington

Tara Hutchinson, University of California, San Diego

Amit Kanvinde, University of California, Davis

Patrick Lynett, University of Southern California

Eduardo Miranda, Stanford University

Ertugrul Taciroglu, University of California, Los Angeles

This year’s research committee continues and expands the work implemented by the previous committee. PEER wishes to thank the contributions of the previous committee, whose members were: Pedro Arduino, University of Washington; Jack Baker, Stanford University; Judy Liu, Oregon State University; and Gilberto Mosqueda, University of California, San Diego.

Industry Advisory Board - identifies current and future needs of the profession and engineering community; advises on industry problems and applications with research potential; provides the bridge between research and industry; facilitates opportunities for PEER to pursue.

Eve Hinman, Hinman Consulting Engineers

Peter Lee, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) L.L.P

Brian Kehoe, Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates (WJE), Inc.

James Malley, Degenkolb

Steve Marusich, Forell/Elsesser Engineers, Inc.

Jennie Watson-Lamprey, Slate Geotechnical Consultants

Resource Identification Committee - pursues existing opportunities and actively seeks out new sources of funding to help realize PEER’s vision; identifies and facilitates funding opportunities for PEER leadership to pursue; provides recommendations and directions to increase chances of securing funding.

Hosam Ali, FM Global

Jeffrey Bachhuber, Pacific Gas and Electricity (PGE)

Marc Eberhard, University of Washington

Ahmed El Gamal, University of California, San Diego 

David McCallen, University of Nevada, Reno

Farhang Ostadan, Bechtel Corporation