7 Inside look at UB assistance to Haiti - UB Reporter



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Inside look at UB’s assistance to Haiti

By ARTHUR PAGE
Published: March 17, 2010

Several members of the UB community who answered the call to help Haiti following the devastating earthquake on Jan. 12 will provide an inside look at their experiences in a program, “UB Reaching Others: The Haiti Earthquake,” on March 26.

The free program will be held from 1:30-3:30 p.m. in the Drama Theatre in the Center for the Arts, North Campus.

It will be sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for External Affairs, MCEER (Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research) and the UB 2020 strategic strength Extreme Events: Mitigation and Response.

Speakers will include Pierre Fouche, Haitian-born doctoral candidate and Fulbright Scholar in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering; Chris Renschler, associate professor of geography and director of the Landscape-based Environmental System Analysis and Modeling (LESAM) laboratory; Andre Filiatrault, professor of civil, structural and environmental engineering and director of MCEER; Lawrence Bone, professor and chair of the Department of Orthopaedics; and Stephen Dunnett, professor and vice provost for international education.

Fouche, the Haitian doctoral student, will discuss his quest to acquire the civil-engineering knowledge and skills to help his homeland rebuild with buildings and infrastructure better designed to withstand future earthquakes.

Filiatrault and Renschler will discuss how their expertise was called upon following the earthquake that destroyed most of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince and affected 3 million people, an estimated 230,000 of whom lost their lives.

Filiatrault will report on his experience leading an international team of French-speaking structural engineers that visited Haiti to assess the structural safety of hospitals, food warehouses and other structures critical to the immediate relief effort in Port-au-Prince.

Renschler will discuss his leadership of a multi-institutional team seeking to enhance disaster response and recovery through damage assessments of the earthquake acquired via airborne and satellite imagery.

Bone will discuss his experience with nine other members of the Orthopaedic Trauma Association who volunteered in treating Haitian patients injured during the earthquake.

Dunnett will report on his office’s efforts to assist Haitian students at UB, and discuss future international-education initiatives involving Haiti and its recovery from this disaster.