*Subject to Change*
Thursday | March 19
Opening Plenary- AEI | IRD Conference
The AEI IRD Opening Plenary will encompass two vital topics that inspire meaningful discussion. Attendees will gain valuable insights from industry experts during the Flood Recovery panel presentation and discover the NIST perspective on community and infrastructure resilience.
Part 1: The Shifting Paradigm of Flood Protection
Industry experts illuminate the path of how strategic flood protection and mitigation can safeguard our critical infrastructure and foster long-term resilience. By comprehending flood risks and implementing tailored design solutions, we empower cities and property owners to navigate and rise above the challenges of rising water.
Introductions by: Andrew D. Sorensen, Ph.D., M.B.A., P.E., AEI Program Chair, Associate Professor | Architectural Engineering, Department of Multidisciplinary Engineering | College of Engineering | Texas A&M University
Panelists: Lisa Osborne, CEO, Founding Partner, Collaborative Engineering Group; Charles M. Penland, PE, LEED AP, Managing Principal, Walter P Moore; Jared Wood, AIA, Partner, Studio RED Architects; Kevin Schmidt. P.E., LEED AP, Vice President, Collaborative Engineering Group; Ray Drexler, PE, Principal & Senior Project Manager, Diagnostics, Walter P Moore; Tony Mansoorian, EVP & Chief Operating Officer, Bellows Construction
Part 2: Community and Infrastructure Resilience: A Perspective on Where We Have Been and Where We Are Going
Community and regional resilience provide a path to reduce the societal consequences that are occurring too frequently by addressing the intersection of engineering, social science, economics, and other disciplines to improve how communities prepare for, resist, respond to, and recover from hazard events. Buildings and infrastructure systems play a critical role in assuring the resilience of communities through their performance and impacts on societal and economic functions. While the adoption and enforcement of codes and standards are necessary, they may not be sufficient to achieve resilience goals. Community level modeling brings important design and lifecycle management perspectives to individual infrastructure projects. Understanding motivations and challenges for community and project resilience planning and execution is needed to address ongoing challenges.
Additionally, current building and infrastructure standards are based on historical, stationary hazard events. Looking forward, design methods need to address future nonstationary variations in temperatures, sea level, precipitation, floods, and wind events. Future hazard events and conditions can lead to a greater likelihood of damage to the built environment, increased social and economic losses, and reduced public safety.
Motivations, progress, and challenges for resilience planning and execution will be considered, including approaches for assessments (frameworks, analysis tools, field studies) and decision making. Looking forward, in addition to better communicating the value of resilience planning and the adoption and enforcement of codes and standards, there are two topics that need to be addressed in the near future:
- Data standardization for planning, monitoring, post-event assessment, and recovery.
- Characterization of future hazards and conditions for design and assessment of the built environment.
Introductions by: John W. van de Lindt, Ph.D., F. ASCE, IRD Program Chair,
Harold H. Short Chaired Professor, Co-Director, NIST Center of Excellence for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Colorado State University
Speaker: Terri P. McAllister, Ph.D., P.E., F.SEI, Dist.M.ASCE