Message from the Director
Welcome to the website of the MAE Center.
The MAE Center was established in 1997 by the National Science Foundation as one of three national earthquake engineering research centers. Since then, we have expanded the mission of the center to consider multiple hazards around the world. We have also developed a new sustainable business model that will allow the center to continue to be a world leader in the prediction and mitigation of natural and human-made hazards and one of the world’s most comprehensive centers for risk analysis.
The MAE Center develops through research and disseminates through education and outreach new integrated approaches to minimize the consequences of future natural and human-made hazards. Specifically, the MAE Center has been creating a Multi-hazard Approach to Engineering by conducting interdisciplinary research to estimate damage and vulnerability across regional and national networks, and characterize different hazards. Through these activities, we have been supporting stakeholder and societal interests in risk assessment and mitigation.
The center has developed, articulated, and successfully applied a new framework for disaster mitigation referred to as Consequence-based Risk Management, or CRM. The CRM framework guides the continued development of MAEViz, the MAE Center impact assessment software that has been used very extensively in the US and internationally.
The center has its headquarters in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. CEE consistently ranks among the most elite programs, both in the U.S. and worldwide, for undergraduate and graduate studies. In 2012, the widely cited U.S. News & World Report ranked Civil Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign No 1 in both undergraduate and graduate education.
In the future, we want to continue to promote innovation in developing interdisciplinary knowledge and excellence in cross-cutting and interdisciplinary research to help solve the most pressing global challenges of the 21st century associated with natural and human-made hazards.
I encourage you to explore this website and learn more about the MAE Center. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments.
Prof. Paolo Gardoni
Director of the MAE Center
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign