Speakers
Scott Civjan, PhD, PE
Associate Dean for Undergraduate Affairs; Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Professor Scott Civjan has been a faculty member at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for 23 years, with a specialty in Structural Engineering. He obtained his doctorate degree from the University of Texas at Austin 1998. He is also a Registered Professional Engineer in Massachusetts and Texas. His experience also includes four years of full-time consulting experience at Black & Veatch in Overland Park, KS. Over the past five years he has introduced ethics as a “through the curriculum” topic in classes he teaches, including Strength of Materials and several structural design classes. His current approach is to discuss ethics through understanding the decision-making process and its impacts of engineering decisions. Recently he has authored two articles on Ethics in the Structure magazine of ASCE. He has also coauthored two articles on Ethics which were presented in the 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference.
Erica Fischer, PhD, PE
Associate Professor
Oregon State University
Dr. Fischer’s teaching interests include structural design (reinforced concrete and structural steel), seismic design of steel-frame structures, structural fire engineering, and related areas. Research and Interests: Dr. Fischer’s research interests revolve around innovative approaches to improve the resilience and robustness of structural systems affected by natural and man-made hazards. This includes performance-based design approaches of structural systems to decrease the environmental impact of the built environment on the natural environment. Dr. Fischer’s focus is on steel and composite systems and connections. These research interests are implemented through both large-scale experimental testing and numerical modeling approaches. Dr. Fischer is a member of a number of committees including the ASCE/SEI Fire Protection Committee and ASCE/SEI Sustainability Committee. She has been a member of a number of post-earthquake reconnaissance team missions including Haiti (2010), Napa (2014), and Italy (2016).
Tara L. Hoke, BA, JD
General Counsel
American Society of Civil Engineers
Tara Hoke, BA, JD, is General Counsel at the American Society of Civil Engineers and a member of the Virginia Bar. She is a 2005 graduate of Georgetown Law. In addition to serving as ASCE's legal counsel in areas of employment, tax, contract, and intellectual property law, Tara oversees ASCE's professional conduct committee and writes a monthly column, A Question of Ethics, which is published in Civil Engineering magazine. Tara also serves as Secretary for the Committee on Publication Ethics, a UK-based charity that provides ethics guidance for scholarly publishers.
Amit Kanvinde, SE
Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering; Associate Dean, Academic Personnel and Planning, College of Engineering
University of California, Davis
Amit Kanvinde is interested in the seismic response and design of steel structures with an emphasis on understanding extreme limit states such as fracture, fatigue, and collapse. His research addresses structural performance at the material, component, as well as the building scales. This work involves combinations of experiments, computational simulation and analytical modeling. Visit the publications page for more details.
Jordan Komp, PE, SE
Associate Principal and MKE Office Director
Thornton Tomasetti
Jordan joined Thornton Tomasetti in 2010, after receiving his combined MS/BS from Marquette University. He is a licensed Professional Engineer in Wisconsin and Structural Engineer in Illinois.
Jordan’s design and project management experience encompass a variety of building types, including mid-rise to supertall buildings, long-span structures, and mass timber construction. Jordan was a key contributor to several of the firms most iconic jobs and has been responsible for the design and construction of multiple projects throughout the Midwest and internationally. He is also an accredited IBC Mass Timber Special Inspector.
Jordan was named one of ENR Midwest’s 2018 Top Young Professionals, and is currently a member of the SEI/ASCE Tall Buildings Committee, as well as a founding member of ACE Milwaukee; serving as a mentor to high school students interested in the architecture, construction, and engineering industry.
Thomas Murphy, PhD PE, SE
Senior Vice President, Chief Technical Officer
Modjeski and Masters
Thomas Murphy, PhD, PE, SE, is a senior vice president, the chief technical officer, and chairman of the board of Modjeski and Masters, a bridge design and engineering firm. His professional experience has included the analysis, design and detailing of a variety of bridges including cable-stayed, suspension, arch, truss and girder bridges with special emphasis on seismic analysis and design.
Dr. Murphy has been involved in all stages of the bridge design process, from the development of design specifications, to the completion of conceptual studies for specific crossings, preliminary and final design, and construction stage issues. He is active in bridge related research, and has led numerous research teams in the development of new design specifications.
Michael Osowski
Senior Project Manager
PCL Construction
Shiling Pei, PhD, PE
Associate Professor
Colorado School of Mines
Presentation Title: NHERI TallWood Project: Seismically Resilient Tall Wood Buildings
Dr. Shiling Pei received his PhD in Civil Engineering from Colorado State University in December 2007 and joined the faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Colorado School of Mines in fall 2013. Before that, he worked as an Assistant Professor at South Dakota State University from 2010 to 2013. His research focused on multi-hazard mitigation through performance based engineering, numerical modeling of structural dynamic behavior, traditional and innovative timber systems, and large-scale dynamic testing. Dr. Pei received the 2012 ASCE Raymond C. Reese Research Prize for his work on seismic performance of mid-rise wood frame building. He is the author of the Seismic Analysis Package for Woodframe Structures (SAPWood) as part of the NSF (NEESR) funded NEESWood project, and served as one of the lead researchers in shake table testing of a full-scale seven-story wood-steel hybrid building at Japan’s E-defense shake table. He is currently leading an NSF funded six-university collaboration effort to develop seismic design methodology for resilient tall cross laminated timber (CLT) buildings. Dr. Pei is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of California.
David B. Peraza, PE
Principal Engineer
Exponent
Mr. Peraza has over 40 years of broad structural and civil engineering experience and is licensed in 17 states. His work has included investigations of major collapses, catastrophe response, diagnosis of design and construction deficiencies, damage caused by adjacent construction, condition assessments, hurricane damage investigations, design of remedial and stabilization measures for distressed buildings, design for renovation projects, and the analysis of unusual structures. His projects have included high-rise buildings, façades, cranes, parking structures, pre-engineered buildings, industrial facilities, scaffolds, formwork, bridges, and waterfront structures.
Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Mr. Peraza led the emergency engineering response for the City of New York, which continued around the clock for nearly nine months and included the coordination of 39 engineering sub-consultant firms. He has led several high-profile structural collapse investigations including L’Ambiance Plaza, the Four Times Square Hoist Collapse, and the Miller Park crane accident.
Prior to joining Exponent, Mr. Peraza was Vice President with the LZA Technology division of The Thornton-Tomasetti Group.
Fraser Reid, PE, CEng., MICE
Associate Principal
Buro Happold
Fraser is an associate principal who has been with Buro Happold for over 15 years. Fraser currently manages a team of structural engineers in the New York office and works alongside the wider leadership team to deliver some of the firm’s most structurally complex projects throughout the US region and globally.
Fraser has built a breadth of experience collaborating with leading architects and design teams on a range of projects in sectors that include higher education, science and technology, culture and performing arts and commercial and mixed-use developments. He is especially adept at understanding client needs, managing complex interfaces and leading engineering teams to develop economic, buildable structural designs.
With his expertise, Fraser has led the structural engineering design on a number of large scale projects including the winning international competition entry for the new Hungarian Museum of Transport and a new interdisciplinary science and technology building at Arizona State University. He is passionate about sustainable structural solutions and is currently researching methods to dramatically reduce embodied carbon in existing and new construction.
Jared M. Reigstad, PE, PEng. (TBD)
Vice President and owner at Reigstad Engineers
Presentation Title: Pour Strips - Designing for Construction Productivity and Safety
Jared M. Reigstad is Vice President and owner at Reigstad Engineers, where he oversees operations, including the structural and precast engineering departments. With nearly 20 years of experience in structural engineering design and construction, he serves on both the Building Design and Parking Structure Committees for the Post-Tensioning Institute, the Joint ACI-PCI Committee 319 - Precast Structural Concrete Code, and ACI Committee 408-0A - Mechanical Reinforcing Bar Anchorages and Splices. Jared received his bachelor of science in civil engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his master’s in civil engineering from Norwich University where he was an adjunct faculty member in the Master of Civil Engineering Program for over 15 years.
Thomas Root, PE
Project Management Director
Minnesota Zoo
Jon Wacker, PE
Structural Engineer
HGA
Ben Worsfold, PhD,
Assistant Professor
University of Minnesota
Ben Worsfold is an Assistant Professor at U of M in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering. He received his BS in civil engineering from the University of Costa Rica in 2015 and his MS and PhD from UC Berkeley in 2017 and 2022, respectively. He is a member of ACI Subcommittee 318-1R, Resolution of Anchorage and Development Provisions. His research interests include anchoring to concrete, laboratory testing, and finite element analysis of reinforced concrete.