Dr. Grace Yan, associate professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering, was elected chair of the North American Alliance for Hazards and Disaster Research (NAAHDRI) board of directors. NAAHDRI is affiliated with 99 hazard and disaster research centers across North America. Over the next four years, Dr. Yan will lead the board to work with the centers to fulfill the mission of building resilient civil structures, infrastructure, communities and cities, under the changing climate.

Yan also participated in site visits to areas damaged in December’s deadly tornadoes. She worked with the Interdependent Networked Community Resilience Modeling Environment (IN-CORE) team from Colorado State University, along with colleagues from National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). They drove street by street with 360-degree-view cameras in Mayfield, Dawson Springs, Princeton, Hartford, Centertown, and Bremen, Kentucky; Edwardsville, Illinois; Leachville and Monette, Arkansas; and Samburg, Tennessee.

“The devastation from tornadoes leaves no doubt as to the vulnerability of the central and southeastern United States to tornadoes,” Yan says. “The storms prompted an urgent need to develop and enforce a tornado-resistant design for civil structures.”