Workshop Coordinators

Dr Iman Hajirasouliha is currently a Senior Lecturer and the Leader of the Earthquake Engineering Group (EEG) in the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering at the University of Sheffield. After completing his PhD studies at Sharif University of Technology, one of the leading technological universities in the Middle East, he was appointed as a lecturer in Structural Engineering at the University of Science and Culture in Tehran. In 2008, he was awarded a Marie Curie Research Fellowship at the University of Sheffield on the EU funded Research Training Network En-Core. Subsequently, he received a prestigious Marie Curie individual fellowship (IIF) at The University of Sheffield in 2009. From 2010 to 2012, he was a Lecturer in Structural Engineering at the University of Nottingham, UK. In October 2012 he was appointed lecturer in structural engineering at The University of Sheffield and promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2015.

Professor Alper Ilki has been an academic staff of Istanbul Technical University (ITU), Civil Engineering Faculty since 1993. He is a member of Reinforced Concrete Structures Unit of the Civil Engineering Faculty and he is the co-director of Structural and Earthquake Engineering Laboratory of ITU. He carries out research on structural and earthquake engineering and he is the author or co-author of 44 journal papers (indexed by SCI or SCIE) and 150 international conference papers. He has served as the coordinator or the researcher of large number of research projects funded by European Union, NATO, TUBITAK, JICA, etc., and he has supervised 10 completed PhD theses and 50 completed MSc theses upto now. The main theme of his academic studies is the seismic behavior of reinforced concrete and masonary structures, and seismic retrofitting. He has been reviewer of more than 220 international journal papers, required from 47 different high quality international scientific journals of which 36 are indexed by SCI or SCIE. He has worked/is working for the commissions of Seismic Design Code 2007, Code for Assessment of Highly Vulnerable Buildings, and Seismic Design Code 2017.

Workshop Mentors

Professor Pilakoutas is leading the Concrete and Earthquake Engineering Group at the UoS with over 30 academics and researchers. He has 26 years of teaching experience and has supervised more than 50 PhD students. Therefore, he has vast experience in training researchers and can identify needs, strengths and capabilities develop their skills, overcome challenges and reach their objectives. In the workshop, he will give one of the keynote lectures and he will join roundtable discussions with ERCs.

Dr Ozdemir has been actively collaborating with French/Turkish researchers on earthquake engineering subjects since 2010. Her PhD focused on the seismic behaviour of industrial liquid storage tanks. She is currently supervising several UG, MSc and PhD dissertations in the field. She will act as a liaison between the UoS and ITU for the organisation and management of the workshop activities. She will also be responsible for managing poster sessions and sending out invitations to UK stakeholders.

Dr Yazgan obtained his PhD from ETH Zurich with a thesis on the subject of "The use of residual displacements as a seismic performance indicator in seismic assessment". Following to his PhD, he was employed by Swiss Reinsurance Company to work on natural catastrophe risk modeler. He will give a keynote lecture on Rapid Response and Early Warning Systems in Marmara and will be responsible for giving lab tours, joining round table discussions, sending out invitations to Turkish stakeholders.

Dr Caglayan obtained his PhD from ITU with a thesis on the subject of "Detection of bridge damages using dynamic testing methods”. He is an expert in the areas of earthquake resistant design and experimental testing of steel and composite structures. He will give a keynote lecture on “Structural Health Monitoring of Bridges in Marmara”. He will assist in the co-ordination and logistics of the workshop and lead lab training.

Workshop Administrator

Mr. Ates has been working as a research assistant at Istanbul Technical University since 2011. He has obtained his MSc degree from Istanbul Technical University focusing on nonlinear behaviour of vertically irregular structural systems. He is currently studying for his PhD thesis under supervision of Prof. ILKI. His PhD study focuses on retrofitting of sub-standard reinforced concrete columns using cementitious composites. He will be responsible for the general organisation of the workshop in Turkey.