Welcome to the International Symposium on Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering, held in honour of Prof. Misko Cubrinovski. This event took place on 2-3 February 2026 at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.
This webpage provides archival information of this event in the form of presentation slides, videos, and photos.
Programme:
Monday 2nd February
Welcome (Chair: Brendon Bradley, U. Canterbury) "Opening remarks"
Session 1: Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering (Chair: Zorana Mijic, U.Delaware)
Jonathan Bray (UC Berkeley) “Field Case histories are the cornerstone of earthquake engineering”
Ikuo Towhata (U. Tokyo) “Enthusiasm on dynamic earth”
Session 2: Nonlinear Dynamic Analysis (Chair: Maxim Millen, Tonkin and Taylor)
Ross Boulanger (UC Davis) “Nonlinear Dynamic Modeling in Geotechnical Practice” (embargoed till 9 March 2026)
Mahdi Taiebat (U. British Columbia) “Fabric-Anisotropy-Informed Constitutive Modelling of Cyclic Liquefaction”
Pedro Ardunio (U. Washington) “Experiences and Challenges in Modeling Dynamic Soil–Structure Interaction”
Session 3: Advances in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering Practice: NZ Perspectives (Chair: Liam Wotherspoon, U. Auckland))
Hayden Bowen (Tonkin and Taylor) "Part 1 presentation"
Campbell Keepa (WSP) "Part 2 presentation"
Merrick Taylor (BECA) "Part 3 presentation"
Session 4: Site response and regional analysis (Chair: Chris de la Torre, U. Canterbury)
Brady Cox (Utah State) “Insights on Measuring and Modeling Damping for Seismic Ground Response Analyses”
Ellen Rathje (UT Austin) “Deriving Meaningful Site Amplification Estimates from Recorded Earthquake Ground Motions”
Carlo Lai (U. Pavia) “National-Scale Mapping of the Expected Earthquake Magnitude for Soil Liquefaction Triggering Analyses”
Tuesday 3rd February
Session 5: Next-generation approaches in liquefaction assessment (Chair: Ribu Dhakal, U. British Colombia)
Shideh Dashti (UC Boulder) “New Directions in Liquefaction Research: Assessment & Mitigation through Physics Informed & Data Driven Methodologies”
Steven Kramer (U. Washington) “A Bayesian Approach to Liquefaction Case History Interpretation”
Jonathan Stewart (UC Los Angeles) “NGL Models for Liquefaction Triggering and Manifestation”
Session 6: Liquefaction of complex and improved soils (Chair: Vlatko Sesov, Inst. Eq. Eng. & Seis. Skopje)
Rolando Orense (U. Auckland) “Liquefaction behaviour of crushable volcanic soils: insights and issues”
Adda Athanasopoulos-Zekkos (UC Berkeley) “Effect of initial shear stress and overburden stress on liquefaction response of gravelly soils”
Russell Green (Virgina Tech) “Evaluating Liquefaction Triggering of Improved Ground”
Session 7: Challenging soils in NZ (Chair: Rick Wentz, Wentz Pacific)
Gabriele Chiaro (U. Canterbury) “Beyond sands: evaluating the liquefaction response of New Zealand’s alluvial gravelly soils”
Mark Stringer (U. Canterbury) “Volcanic soils – how bad could it be?”
Mike Jacka (Tonkin and Taylor) “Research to reality: Challenging soils in NZ practice”
Session 8: Issues for piles and dam structures (Chair: Anna Winkley, Tonkin and Taylor)
Bruce Kutter (UC Davis) “Performance of axially loaded piles that penetrate liquefiable soil layers”
Jonathan Fannin (U. British Colombia) “Internal erosion in dam safety: from practice to theory”
Ramon Verdugo (CMGI) “Instability Line and Triggering Mechanisms of Static Liquefaction”
Closure (Misko Cubrinovski, U. Canterbury) "Closing remarks"
Photos:
This event was proudly supported by:
