Event Detail Information

SPEAKER BIO: Professor Amr Elnashai, Fellow of the UK Royal Academy of Engineering, is the William and Elaine Hall Endowed Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois.  He is also Director and Chair of the College of Engineering Council on Global Engineering Initiatives.

A graduate of Cairo University, Dr. Elnashai obtained his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from Imperial College, University of London, UK. Before joining the University of Illinois in June 2001, he was Professor of Earthquake Engineering and Head of Section at Imperial College. He has been Visiting Professor at the University of Surrey since 1997. Other visiting appointments include the University of Tokyo, the University of Southern California (1990-1995) and the European School for Advanced Studies in Reduction of Seismic Risk, Italy, where he has served on the Board of Directors since its founding in 2000.

Dr. Elnashai is founder and co-editor of the Journal of Earthquake Engineering, editorial board member of several other journals, a member of the drafting panel of the European and Egyptian design codes, past chairman of the UK earthquake engineering association, UK delegate to and past senior Vice-President of the European Association of Earthquake Engineering. He is the winner of the Imperial College Unwin Prize for the best PhD thesis in Civil and Mechanical Engineering (1984), the Oscar Faber Medal for best paper in the Institution of Structural Engineering, and two best paper medals from the International Association of Tall Buildings, Los Angeles. He served as coordinator for major European research networks including 14 institutions from 9 countries.             

Dr. Elnashai is Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Institution of Structural Engineers in the UK. He is President of the Asian-Pacific Network (ANCER), a member of the FIB Seismic Design Commission Working Groups and two Applied Technology Council (ATC, USA) technical committees as well as the Illinois State Seismic Safety Task Force. He founded the Japan-UK Seismic Risk Forum in 1995 and served as its director until 2004. He was adviser to the UK Department of the Environment, chairman of a ministerial committee for the assessment of scientific research in Egypt, adviser to the Civil Defense Agency of Italy and review panel member for the Italian Ministry of Research and the New Zealand and Canadian Science Research Councils.