News
December 2023 – Cabas contributes to the organization of the ASCE GI 8th Annual Web Conference and the USGS 2023 CEUS/Coastal Plains Earthquake Ground Motion Virtual Workshop. Cassie presented her latest work on the Seismic Velocity model for the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains at the USGS workshop.
September 2023 – Dr. Thomas Pratt from USGS visits NC State and meets with the GeoQuake team!
August 2023 – Melanie Dickson and David Barba join the GeoQuake team! Welcome to the pack!
July 2023 – Cabas is invited to the USGS in Golden, CO to present GeoQuake’s work on the new DesignSafe Ground Motion Database, available here! Faculty from the University of Colorado at Boulder were also very kind to attend the presentation. Exciting interactions all around!
March 2023 – Cassie Gann-Phillips wins the National ASCE GI Poster Competition and Nancy Ingabire Abayo is the runner up! Cassie Gann-Phillips, Cristina Lorenzo and Ariana Paul (our first freshman in the team) got 3rd place in the GeoVideo competition! Thomas Na presented important aspects of his PhD work at GeoCongress 2023. He is heading to Geosyntec in May!
March 2023 – Cabas launched E2SCALA during her GeoPIT talk at GeoCongress. Watch it now here:
What an incredible team we have! Congratulations everyone!
December 2022 – Cabas is selected as selected as one of the 2023 CEE Outstanding Young Alumni at Virginia Tech.
October 2022 – Cabas becomes Associate Editor of Earthquake Spectra.
July 2022 – Cabas is invited to become a Faculty Fellow of the Center of Geospatial Analytics at NC State. Read more about our geospatial analytics work here and here.
July 2022 – Jungmin Lee joins the team as the newest Ph.D. student! Welcome Jungmin!
June 2022 – Cristina Lorenzo Velazquez, Nancy Ingabire Abayo and Ashly Cabas attended the 12NCEE. Three technical sessions were chaired by these team members, Cabas gave a presentation summarizing the GEER team efforts on understanding the geotechnical effects and ground motions of the 2021 Haiti earthquake, and Nancy participated in the organization of the seismic design competition.
April 2022 – Cassie Gann, Chunyang Ji and Ashly Cabas attend the 2022 Annual Meeting of the Seismological Society of America. Our session on Multiscale Evaluations of Attenuation was well attended and we had great discussions with multiple teams investigating bias and effects of soil nonlinear behavior on kappa.
April 2022 – Nancy Ingabire Abayo wins the 2022-2023 AAUW International Fellowship
April 2022 – Cassie Gann wins the 2022 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! Congratulations Cassie! Cassie’s work will look into the relationships between near surface attenuation and site response analysis. The team got together to celebrate Cassie and her accomplishment!
March 2022 – The GeoQuake team attends the 2022 GeoCongress, with oral presentations by Nancy Ingabire Abayo, and posters by Thomas Na, Cristina Lorenzo Velazquez, Cassie Gann, and Chunyang Ji.
March 2022 – Dr. Cabas wins NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award . Our team is extremely excited to work on “Multiscale Probabilistic Characterization of Seismic Site Response in Highly Uncertain Environments”. You can read more information about this project here.
February 2022 – Our GEER report summarizing reconnaissance efforts after the 2021 Haiti earthquake is available here!
January 2022 – Welcome Dr. Chunyang Ji who joins our team as a postdoc! Looking forward to expanding our work on engineering seismology, including seismic attenuation and nonergodic ground motion models.
December 2021 – Dr. Cabas is one of the two recipients of the 2021 EERI Shah Family Innovation Prize.
“The Shah Family Innovation Prize rewards younger professionals and academics for creativity, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit in the field of earthquake risk mitigation and management. The intent of the prize is to stimulate further creativity and leadership in the earthquake risk mitigation community and EERI”. Read more about our team’s work here!
December 2021 – Ishika Chowdhury becomes the third PhD student to graduate from our team! Congratulations Dr. Chowdhury for an excellent PhD final defense on “Hazard-consistent ground motions for geotechnical earthquake engineering analysis”.
November 2021 – Chunyang Ji defended her PhD dissertation on “Characterizing Seismic Wave Attenuation via the High-Frequency Spectral Decay Parameter Kappa: Effects of Near-Surface Sedimentary Deposits on Uncertainty and Applications in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering”. Big congratulations to Dr. Ji! We are so lucky she decided to stay as a postoc in our team!!
November 2021 – The GeoQuake Lab now has a YouTube Channel! Check out our first educational videos by the amazing Cassie Gann and Marlee Strong! Subtitles are now provided in English AND IN SPANISH!!!! More videos coming soon!
October 2021 – The Geohazards and Earthquake Engineering team has a new name and a new logo! We are the GeoQuake Lab!
October 2021 – Dr. Cabas is interviewed about earthquakes and geotechnical engineering by Jonathan Van Ness in his podcast Getting Curious! Listen to the episode here!
August 2021
- Dr. Cabas, Nancy Ingabire Abayo, Chunyang Ji and Cristina Lorenzo Velazquez join the GEER team to conduct virtual reconnaisance after the 2021 Haiti Earthquake.
- Dr. Cabas is selected as one of ASCE Geo-Institute New Faces and is interviewed by Drs. and Melissa Beauregard. You can find her interview in Geostrata Magazine here!
- Zachary Militello joins the team as an undergraduate researcher to investigate geophysical parameters in the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains.
May 2021- Nancy Ingabire Abayo wins first place in the national GI Student Poster Competition! Congratulations Nancy!
March 2021
– What a month for the team!
- Cristina Lorenzo-Velazquez got the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and an Honorable mention for her application to the Ford Fellowship
- Nancy Ingabire Abayo is one of the six finalists at the National GeoPoster Competition (to take place at 2021 IFCEE), got 2nd place at the CCEE 3-minute thesis competition, and got an Honorable Mention at the AGU Outstanding Student Presentation Awards
- Chunyang Ji got the CCEE Thomas Griffin Graduate Award for Spring 2021
CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE!
February 2021 – Dr. Cabas is selected as a member of the first cohort of NC State Impact Scholars. Find more about the Strengthening the Impact of Research (STIR) Program here!August 2020 – Cassie Gann
joins our research team as the newest PhD student in the group. Welcome Cassie!
August 2020 – Sugandha Singh and Maria Ramos Sepulveda succesfully defended their PhD dissertations and MSc thesis, respectively on the same week! Maria will continue her journey in academia as a PhD student in UCLA. Dr. Singh has accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor faculty position in India.
August 2020 – Dr. Cabas gives a seminar on the “Effects of Seismic Impedance Contrast and Fundamental Period on the Elastic Halfspace Assumption for Site Response Analysis” at RMS Lunch &Learn virtual seminar series.
May 2020 – Dr. Cabas begins her role as invited Guest Editor of the BSSA Special Section on Advances on Site Response along with her colleagues Drs. James Kaklamanos, Stefano Parolai, and Philippe Guéguen. The introductory paper to the Special Section can be found here.
April 2020 – Ishika Chowdhury successfully defended her preliminary exam. Congratulations to the newest PhD candidate of the team!
February 2020 – Dr. Cabas presented a summary of the Geotechnical Aspects of the 2018 Mw 7.1 Anchorage, Alaska Earthquake on behalf of the GEER team at the 2020 GeoCongress in Minneapolis, MN. Maria Ramos-Sepulveda presented her work on Site Effects on Ground Motion Directionality at the GeoCongress Student Poster Session.
February 2020 – PhD student, Ishika Chowdhury and MS student, Maria Ramos-Sepulveda awarded the Departmental Thomas G. Coffey and Thomas W. Griffin Graduate Awards, respectively for their outstanding performance as graduate students. Congratulations Ishika and Maria!
January 2020 – Dr. Cabas’ Online Guest Speaker Series continues throughout her new graduate course CE 593 – Dynamics of Soils and Foundations. This time, Dr. Clint Wood from University of Arkansas has shared his perspectives on Vs field investigation techniques.
January 2020 – Dr. Cabas attended the PEER Annual Meeting in Berkeley, CA and the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting in Washington DC.
December 2019 – Dr. Cabas selected as Fellow for the National Science Foundation-funded Enabling the Next Generation of Hazards and Disasters Researchers Fellowship Program.
December 2019 – Chunyang Ji and Sugandha Singh successfully defended their preliminary exams. Congratulations to the newest PhD candidates of the team!
December 2019 – Dr. James Kaklamanos from Merrimack College spent a few days with the team as part of his sabbatical, working on current collaborations and getting ready for exciting new research opportunities next year!
September 2019 – Dr. Cabas starts new Online Guest Speaker Series for her graduate course CE 746 – Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering. So far, Dr. Jonathan Hubler from Villanova University, Dr. Emel Seyhan from RMS Consultants, Dr. James Kaklamanos from Merrimack College, and Dr. Jennifer Ramirez from Geosyntec have provided great presentations on their current projects, getting students motivated and exposed to a diverse spectrum of possibilities in earthquake engineering!
August 2019 – Dr. Cabas presented her research on the use of site-specific probabilistic seismic hazard analysis and the attenuation parameter Kappa in hazard assessments of critical facilities at the SMiRT Conference hosted by NCSU in Charlotte, NC. From left to right: Drs. Philippe Renault, Gabriel Toro, Kenneth Campbell, Ashly Cabas, and Yousef Bozorgnia.
August 2019 – Undergraduate student Cassie Gann presents her research on seismic slope stability at the Undergraduate Research Symposium at NCSU.
July 2019 – Dr. Cabas attended the NHERI RAPID Workshop at the University of Washington in Seattle.
June 2019 – Dr. Cabas presents at the 7th International Conference on Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering in Rome, Italy. Dr. Cabas presented her collaborative work with Dr. James Kaklamanos on “Ground motion selection using the conditional spectrum: Insights for different tectonic environments“.
June 2019 – Ishika awarded best presentation award at 5th Annual Symposium in Geotechnical Engineering at NCSU.
April 2019 – Our new Resonant Column and Torsional Shear device is up and running at the Constructed Facilities Lab. Exciting new research directions for our team are in the horizon!
April 2019 – The team did a great job presenting their research at the 10th Geotechnical, Geophysical & Geoenvironmental Technology Transfer (Geo3T2) Conference, hosted by North Carolina Department of Transportation Geotechnical Engineering Unit.
February 2019 – Maria Ramos Sepulveda is awarded a scholarship to attend the 2019 ASCE GeoCarolinas Conference. Congratulations!
January 2019 – Nancy Ingabire-Abayo wins the EERI’s 2018 Undergraduate Student Paper Award for her paper entitled “Assessment of Sources of Aleatory Variability in Lateral Spreading Estimations and Measurements”. Congratulations!
December 2018 – Dr. Cabas joins reconnaissance efforts after the November 30, 2018, Mw 7.0 earthquake in Alaska
Dr. Cabas was invited to join the National Science Foundation (NSF) Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance (GEER) team in response to the recent Mw 7.1 earthquake near Anchorage, Alaska. GEER teams consist of geotechnical engineers, engineering geologists, and earth scientists who conduct reconnaissance, collect perishable information, and document observations relevant to geotechnical extreme events. On December 8, 2018 the GEER team was deployed and arrived to Anchorage, AK to coordinate reconnaissance efforts that would take place throughout the following week. The team worked in close collaboration with local geotechnical engineering consultants, researchers from the US Geological Survey, University of Alaska, the Alaska DOT and the Geotechnical Advisory Commission. This seismic event caused structural and non-structural damage to buildings in Anchorage and nearby communities (e.g., Eagle River, Wasilla, Houston, and Palmer), power outages, ground failures, and damage to roadways and railways. The GEER team’s report (versions 1 and 2 have been recently released and can be found here. The report includes a preliminary description of the recorded ground motions, observed damage to buildings, bridges, ports, utilities, slopes and embankments.
August 2018 – Maria Ramos Sepulveda joins our team from University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez. She will be working on Spatial Variability of Ground Motion Intensity Measures Relevant to Lifelines. Welcome Maria!
August 2018 – Nancy Ingabire Abayo presented her work on the Assessment of lateral spreading case histories from recent seismic events at the 17th Annual NC State University Summer Undergraduate Research and Creativity Symposium.
July 2018 – Chunyang Ji starts a research collaboration with a multidisciplinary group of experts at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences located in Potsdam, Germany. Chunyang will be working on nonergodic ground motion models under the supervision of Dr. Fabrice Cotton, Dr. Dino Bindi, and Dr. Marco Pilz.
July 2018 – The whole team participated in an incredible outreach Activity with Juntos Summer Academy. Our presentation focused on Shaking Interdisciplinarity: Earthquakes as an evolving challenge for science, engineering and technology. Demos of fault ruptures, liquefaction, and single degree of freedom oscillators proved very effective in capturing the students’ attention and their appreciation for the multidisciplinary nature of earthquake engineering. This efforts was also framed into a new initiative for supporting Future Ingenieros at NC State!
June 2018 – The team attends the Fifth Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics Conference in Austin, TX. Dr. Cabas chaired a technical session on Ground Motions and Site Response, and presented a paper entitled: “Toward improving damping characterization for site response analysis“.
June 2018 – Ishika Chowdhury presents her work on Assessment of the Influence of the Elastic Halfspace on Site Response Estimations at the 11th National Conference on Earthquake Engineering
May 2018 – Dr. Cabas and Chunyang Ji attend the 2018 Annual Meeting of the Seismological Society of America. Chunyang presented a poster on the Investigation of the Dependence of Kappa Values on the Onset of Soil Nonlinearity as Captured by Shear Strain Index (PGV/Vs30), and Dr. Cabas co-chaired a technical session on the Advances on the Parameterization of Seismic Attenuation: Current Challenges and Opportunities (Dr. Albert Kottke, Dr. Celine Gelis and Dr. Stefano Parolai were also co-chairs of the session)
March 2018 – Dr. Cabas gives an invited talk at the University of Washington in Seattle entitled: “Rethinking How We Parameterize Near-surface Attenuation”
February 2018 – Dr. Ellen Rathje visits NCSU, gives a seminar, and meets with the team and faculty members in the geotechnical engineering group.
July 2017 – Dr. Cabas participates at the 2017 Excellence in Civil Engineering Education Workshop, ExCEEd
March 2017 – Ishika Chowdhury presents her work on “Ground Motions from the August 24, 2016 Rieti Earthquake in Italy”, which ranked within the top 6 submissions to the national poster competition at GeoFrontiers 2017.
January 2017 – Dr. Cabas joins the Center for Nuclear Energy Facilities and Structures (CNEFS)
to bring expertise on the assessment of site-specific seismic hazards.