Natural Disasters

University at Buffalo faculty members will share their expertise on a variety of topics during the UBThisSummer Lecture Series, "The World in Which We Live: Multiple Disciplines, Multiple Perspectives," to be presented on Wednesday afternoons this summer on UB's North (Amherst) Campus.

A symposium on "Emerging Developments in Multi-Hazard Engineering" organized jointly by MCEER, headquartered at the University at Buffalo, and the Architectural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers(ASCE) will be held Sept. 18 at the McGraw-Hill Conference Center in New York City.

Bridges that "dance" during earthquakes could be the safest and least expensive to build, retrofit and repair, according to earthquake engineers at the University at Buffalo and MCEER.

The 14th American Society for Microbiology Conference for Undergraduate Educators (ASMCUE) will be held in the University at Buffalo's Natural Sciences Complex on UB's North (Amherst) Campus on May 18-20.

This semester, the University at Buffalo will celebrate its decades-long commitment to environmental conservation while exploring the climate change crisis and other critical environmental issues through a series of speakers and activities under the theme "A Greener Shade of Blue."

With a grant from the National Science Foundation, researchers at the University at Buffalo will study the experiences of first and second emergency responders during Western New York's "October Surprise" snowstorm to determine if the functioning of emergency responders is impaired significantly when they are worried about their own safety and the safety of their families.

While the group of 200-plus faculty, students and media spectators who gathered at the Structural Engineering and Earthquake Simulation Laboratory (SEESL) at the University at Buffalo on Nov. 14 to watch the world's largest seismic test on a wooden structure probably came away feeling that the house held up very well, a close survey of the damage told a different story.

A University at Buffalo theoretical physicist who published research in 2001 demonstrating that it someday may be possible to build bridges, buildings and other structures that are nearly blast-proof, now has published results based on computer simulations showing how a shock-absorption system might be constructed to accomplish that goal.

For 15 seconds of historic testing, a two-story, wood-frame townhouse built in a laboratory at the University at Buffalo and similar to those found in southern California was shaken violently today by a magnitude 6.7 earthquake like the Northridge quake that struck the Los Angeles area in 1994.

The seismic tests that are conducted regularly inside the cavernous state-of-the-art Structural Engineering and Earthquake Simulation Laboratory (SEESL) in Ketter Hall on the University at Buffalo North (Amherst) Campus generally are viewed by a select few: the structural engineers, technicians and students who are integral to UB's world-renowned program in earthquake engineering. But on Nov. 14, it will be standing room only throughout the viewing areas in the vast, 25,000-square-foot space.