Stephen Mahin

Byron and Elvira Nishkian Professor of Structural Engineering, Director

Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, CA, United States.

Director

International Joint Research Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, P.R. China.

Bio:

Prof. Mahin received his B.Sc. (Honors, 1968), M.Sc. (1970), Ph.D. (1975) and Post-doctoral scholar (1975) from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Mahin’s research focuses on improving understanding of the seismic behavior of systems by integrating high performance numerical and experimental simulation methods, and using that understanding to improve earthquake performance. He pioneered the development of hybrid simulation methods so that structures too large to be tested by conventional means can be studied experimentally, and has carried out a wide variety of destructive shaking table, quasi-static and field tests. He has carried out field investigations following more than 17 major earthquakes. He is an advocate of high fidelity numerical simulation, optimization and performance-based design. He was awarded the Norman Medal by ASCE in 1987 for a paper on his pioneering work on large steel offshore platforms. This work also resulted in his election to the ASCE/OTC Hall of Fame in 2011. Dr. Mahin was a finalist for the Charles Pankow Civil Engineering Innovation Prize in 1998 for the development of practical methods of seismic isolation using friction pendulum concepts. FHWA honored him with the James Cooper Best Paper Award in 2007 for his innovative research on self-centering bridges. Dr. Mahin chaired the NEHRP Northridge Earthquake Engineering Research Coordination Program (1995-1997), NSF US-Japan Cooperative Earthquake Research Program utilizing Large-scale Test Facilities: Phase V-Composite and Hybrid Structures (1995-1999), and the NSF US-Japan Partnership for Advanced Steel Structures (1995-1999). He chaired the technical management committee for the FEMA Program to Reduce Earthquake Hazards in Steel Moment Resisting Frame Structures, which coordinated the research, guideline development and training efforts of more than 250 researchers, students and professional engineers (1994-2000). He currently serves on the Joint Technical Coordinating Commitee for the NEES/E-Defense Collaborative Research Program on Earthquake Engineering. Dr. Mahin was co-PI on the NSF-funded NEES Development Project, and was a founding member of the Board of Directors and Secretary of the NEES Consortium, Inc. He received the Founders Award from NEESinc in May 2005. He has also served as President of CUREe (94-97), Vice-President of the Association for International Cooperation and Research on Steel-Concrete Composite Structures (97-00), and currently serves as Vice President of the International Association for Experimental Structural Engineering. Dr. Mahin is a Director of the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California. Dr. Mahin has applied his research to the solution of important engineering problems in a variety of ways. The American Institute of Steel Construction honored Dr. Mahin with its Lifetime Achievement Award for 2013 and a Special Educator Achievement Award in 2001 for leadership in improving significantly the reliability of steel frame structures subject to earthquakes. For his leadership and management of such efforts he also received a Special Recognition Award from the Applied Technology Council in April 2006. He is active in adapting supplemental viscous damping, added mass damping and seismic isolation systems to the needs of actual building projects.