Plenary Lecture 6

Room: Audimax
Time: Thursday, 1. October 2026, 9:00 - 9:40
Chair: Hector Jensen

Michele Barbato

Professor of Structures, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Director of the UC Davis Climate Adaptation Research Center (CARC)
Director of the CITRIS Climate Initiative
University of California – Davis, Davis (CA), USA

Performance-based multi-hazard engineering under current and changing climate conditions

Structural and infrastructure systems are subject to multiple natural and man-made hazards. Some of the natural hazards are driven by climate and, thus, intrinsically time-dependent. As a result, proper structural design must account for the interaction of these hazards, their non-stationarity, and the presence of uncertainties in structural actions, responses, and capacities. Performance-Based Engineering (PBE) methodologies provide a rigorous framework to include these effects in the analysis and design of structures. This presentation presents the progressive development of PBE methodologies from the time-independent single-hazard approach used in earthquake engineering to a more general performance-based multi-hazard engineering (PBMHE) framework that is able to account for structural aging (i.e., non-stationary capacity) and time-dependent loads such as those produced by climate change (i.e., non-stationary demand). The proposed methodology is illustrated with examples from earthquake, hurricane, and wildfire engineering.

Short Bio

Dr. Michele Barbato is Professor of Structural Engineering and Structural Mechanics in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Davis. He is also Director of the UC Davis Climate Adaptation Research Center, Director of the CITRIS Climate Initiative, and a licensed PE in Louisiana and in Italy. He is an expert in traditional and innovative construction methodologies and materials, and active in the development of performance-based methodologies in earthquake, wind, hurricane, and wildfire engineering, as well as in multihazard applications. He is the author of more than 200 technical publications and received several research awards, including the 2009 ASCE Moisseiff award, the 2011 European Association of Structural Dynamics Junior Research Prize, the 2020 Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize, and the 2023 UC Davis Chancellor’s Innovator of the Year Award. He his Fellow of ASCE, SEI, and EMI, and vice-president of EMI.