Yousef Bozorgnia, Ph.D., P.E., F.ASCE

Yousef Bozorgnia, Ph.D., P.E., F.ASCE

Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Director, Natural Hazards Risk and Resiliency Research Center (NHR3), Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

4731-C Boelter Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1593
Phone: (310) 825-9254
Email:   yousef.bozorgnia@ucla.edu

Biography

Yousef Bozorgnia is a professor of the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, and the founding Director of the Natural Hazards Risk and Resiliency Research Center (NHR3), at UCLA. Dr. Bozorgnia’s expertise includes earthquake engineering and ground motion hazard, with emphasis on multidisciplinary aspects of earthquake science and engineering. He has extensively published scientific papers on earthquake ground motion models, seismic hazard analysis, and structural earthquake engineering. Bozorgnia received his B.S. degree from Sharif University of Technology, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a licensed Professional Civil Engineer (PE) in the State of California. He has been a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) since 1998. In 2019, EERI, COSMOS and SSA jointly awarded Bozorgnia with the Bruce Bolt Medal for his extensive contributions to seismic hazard analysis and earthquake engineering.

Selected Awards and Honors

  • Awarded the 2023 UCLA Public Impact Research Award. The award announcement stated: “Bozorgnia is widely recognized for his extensive contributions to seismic engineering and the quantification of earthquake hazards.” This is a campus-wide award among all departments at UCLA, and is given by the UCLA Chancellor. The award is given for major impactful research projects.
  • Awarded the 2021 UCLA Watanabe Excellence in Research Award. “The Watanabe Excellence in Research Award honors the achievements of a faculty member in the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering who demonstrates innovation in pursuing critical research.” Annually one professor from all UCLA engineering departments is awarded.  
  • Awarded the “2021 Excellence in Structural Engineering Research”, by Structural Engineering Association of Northern California for the research project on Seismic Risk Quantification of Residential Wood-frame Buildings. Yousef Bozorgnia was the project Principal Investigator (PI) of this very large research project funded by the California Earthquake Authority. 
  • Awarded the 2019 Bruce Bolt Medal  jointly by Seismological Society of America (SSA), Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI), and Consortium of Strong Motion Observations Systems (COSMOS), January 2019.  The Bruce Bolt Medal is “to recognize individuals worldwide whose accomplishments involve the promotion and use of strong-motion earthquake data and whose leadership in the transfer of scientific and engineering knowledge into practice or policy has led to improved seismic safety.”
  • Selected as one of 50 “Distinguished Alumni”, among 47,000 graduates over 1966-2016, Sharif University of Technology, May 2016.
  • Awarded “Champions of Earthquake Resilience: Exceptional Public- and Private-Sector Research and Development (R&D) Program”, November 2015, by Applied Technology Council (ATC) and the Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), for “Guidelines for Performance-Based Seismic Design of Tall Buildings”, by (in alphabetical order) Y.Bozorgnia, C.B.Crouse, R.O.Hamburger, R.Klemencic, H.Krawinkler, J.O.Malley, J.P.Moehle, F.Naeim, and J.P.Stewart, Report PEER 2010/05, Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER), University of California, Berkeley.
  • Awarded the “2015 Excellence in Structural Engineering Research”, by Structural Engineering Association of California (SEAOC) for NGA-West project series for their impacts to the structural engineering community, September 2015.
  • Western States Seismic Policy Council (WSSPC), 2013 Award in Innovation Excellence, Tall Buildings Initiative research project.
  • Awarded the “2011 Excellence in Structural Engineering Research”, by both Structural Engineering Association of California (SEAOC), and Structural Engineering Association of Northern California (SEAONC): “Guidelines for Performance-Based Seismic Design of Tall Buildings”, by (in alphabetical order) Y.Bozorgnia, C.B.Crouse, R.O.Hamburger, R.Klemencic, H.Krawinkler, J.O.Malley, J.P.Moehle, F.Naeim, and J.P.Stewart, Report PEER 2010/05, Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER), University of California, Berkeley, November, 2010.
  • Awarded the “2008 Outstanding Paper of the Journal of Earthquake Spectra” for publication: “Comparisons of the NGA ground-motion relations”, by N. Abrahamson, G. Atkinson, D. Boore, Y. Bozorgnia, K. Campbell, B. Chiou, I. M. Idriss,W. Silva, and R. Youngs, Journal of Earthquake Spectra, Vol. 24, No. 1, Feb. 2008, pp. 45-66.
  • Elected as the U.S. National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program (NEHRP) Professional Fellow, by Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI), supported by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 1995.
  • Elected as Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), 1998.
  • Recipient of the University of California, Berkeley, graduate scholarship, 1975, and 1978.
  • Exempted from taking doctoral preliminary examination due to high academic standing, Department of Civil Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, 1978.