New PhD student at EESD

Mathias Haindl graduated in 2020 from the master's program in Structural/Earthquake Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Previously, Mathias obtained his bachelor's and a master's degree in Civil Engineering from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC). Being originally from a country as seismic as Chile, Mathias has worked for approximately 4 years in the seismic analysis and design of industrial facilities, developing a great interest in assessing the seismic performance and resilience of structures. Furthermore, his interest has focused on identifying, characterizing, and propagating the uncertainties associated with structural models, in order to recognize structural vulnerabilities from a probabilistic point of view for subsequent decision making.

As a part of the EESD research group at EPFL, Mathias will deepen in the characterization and quantification of modeling uncertainties in the structural analysis, based on an automated image-based assessment procedure. Special interest will be on masonry structures, which represent a high level of seismic vulnerability. Therefore, the aim is to strengthen the understanding of their seismic performance and improve our resiliency under future seismic threats.