

Carmine Galasso | PhD
Professor (Full) of Catastrophe Risk Engineering, Postgraduate Team Leader & Affiliate/Study Abroad Tutor @ UCL
University College London (UCL) | Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering | Chadwick Building GM14 | Gower St | WC1E 6BT London | UK
Email: c.galasso@ucl.ac.uk
Welcome to the website for Carmine Galasso's research group!
I am a Professor of Catastrophe Risk Engineering in the University College London (UCL)'s Department of Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering (CEGE), UK. Before joining UCL, I worked as a Catastrophe Risk Modeler at Applied Insurance Research (AIR) Worldwide, San Francisco, USA, and as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Performance-based Earthquake Engineering Laboratory, at the University of California, Irvine, USA. I earned my PhD in Earthquake Risk at the Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Italy, in January 2011.
My research focuses on developing and applying probabilistic and statistical methods and tools for catastrophe risk modeling and disaster risk reduction. I investigate risks to building portfolios and infrastructure exposed to multiple natural hazards, including earthquakes, strong wind, and flooding, with particular emphasis on community infrastructure (schools, hospitals, heritage assets) in developing countries.
I co-lead the DE|RISC Lab: Disaster Engineering for ResIlient SoCieties Laboratory at UCL with Dr Gemma Cremen and Dr Roberto Gentile, working at the intersection of civil engineering and other disciplines to facilitate multi-hazard risk- and resilience-informed decision-making for a better tomorrow’s world. Our ultimate goal is to provide society with a sustainable, safer, and more resilient built environment.
Our research is funded by the UK Research and Innovation and its Research Councils, the European Commission, the British Council, the Chinese International Centre for Collaborative Research on Disaster Risk Reduction (ICCR-DRR), the China Scholarship Council (CSC), the (Mexican) Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT), the World Bank and its Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), the Motorola Solution Foundation, and the Willis Research Network, among others.
We strive to create a lab that welcomes, supports, values, and includes people of diverse backgrounds, experiences & perspectives!




WHAT'S NEW
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March 2, 2023: The Willis Towers Watson (WTW) Research Network has published its annual report with key updates across several emerging risks, weather and climate, flood and water management, earth, people, technology, and organisationational resilience projects feeding a better understanding of risk. 'Estimating population displacement following disasters' by Nicole Paul, Carmine Galasso, and Jack Baker (Stanford University) is featured in this year's WTW Research Network review (page 95). Nicole also gave a talk at the 'Artificial Intelligence for Environmental Risks' event organized by the WTW Research Network in partnership with the University of Cambridge’s Artificial Intelligence for the study of Environmental Risks (AI4ER) research center.
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February 10, 2023: Many congratulations to Gabriella Tocchi for receiving the Young Researcher Award (category Disaster Risk Reduction) by the Association for Geophysics “Licio Cernobori” (AGLC) for the paper 'Integrating physical and social vulnerabilities in decision-making for disaster risk reduction' (by G. Tocchi, G. Cremen, C. Galasso, M. Polese), presented at the 41st (Italian) National Conference of the National Group of Solid Earth Geophysics (GNGTS), Bologna, Italy, on February 7-9, 2023. Gabriella received an award certificate and a cash prize during a ceremonial event at the conference. Well done, Gabriella!
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December 10, 2022: Carmine Galasso gave an invited (online) talk on 'Dynamic cities, dynamic natural-hazard risk: representing urban changes in risk and resilience modelling and decision making' at the 3rd International Forum of the National Facility for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NFEES) on the Latest Development of Resilient Cities (IFNFEES03), Tianjin University, China, December 10, 2022.
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November 18, 2022: Many congratulations to Andrea Franchini for being awarded the SiF2022 Student Grant to attend the 12th International Conference on Structures in Fire (SiF 2022) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) in Hong Kong, on November 30 – December 2, 2022, and present our work on 'A Maximum Allowable Consequence Approach to Fire Safety Design of Bridges' (by A. Franchini, C. Galasso, and J. Torero). On November 16, 2022, Andrea also received the prize for the Best PhD student presentation at the UCL Dept of Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering Research Festival 2022 for his work on the fire-safety design of bridges. Well done, Andrea!
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November 5, 2022: Our research lab co-directors (Gemma Cremen, Carmine Galasso, and Roberto Gentile) and several members (Leandro Iannacone, Fabrizio Nocera, Chenbo Wang, and Karim Aljawhari) attended the Tomorrow’s Cities global meeting in Kathmandu, Nepal, on October 31 – November 4, 2022. During the event, we discussed the latest progress and how the project’s innovative approach to multi-hazard risk-based pro-poor urban planning and design can be taken up in new cities. We also visited the traditional Newari village of Khokana and the Bhaktapur site. Our lab is leading several work packages and research activities within the project as well as contributing to its overall management.
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November 1, 2022: Abbie Liel (University of Colorado Boulder, USA) and Seth Guikema (University of Michigan, USA) are visiting our research lab this month as part of their sabbatical in Europe. Abbie will stay with us until Christmas and will give a number of talks on her work at UCL, University of Bristol, ARUP London, IUSS Pavia, and Università degli Studi G.D'Annunzio Chieti Pescara.
RESEARCH AREAS
Catastrophe Risk Modeling for Natural Hazards
Performance-based Multi-Hazard Engineering
Earthquake-induced Ground-motion Modeling
Uncertainty Modeling and Structural Reliability
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