13NCEE

Conference Hotel Rooms are Filling Up! The deadline is THIS FRIDAY!

This is the perfect time to finalize your 13NCEE travel arrangements!

EERI encourages you to stay at the conference headquarters hotel, the Hyatt Regency. This will allow you to take full advantage of the conference networking opportunities, and ensure the shortest walk to the conference venue at the Oregon Convention Center. Book your stay at the Hyatt Regency. EERI’s special room rates are available through June 19, 2026, but rooms are LIMITED, so book soon.

You can find more information about the hotel HERE.

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AWARDS

2025 Outstanding Paper Award: Felipe Kuncar and Authorship Team

The Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) is pleased to announce that the 2025 Outstanding Paper Award has been awarded to Felipe Kuncar, Brendon Bradley, Christopher de la Torre, Adrian Rodriguez-Marek, Chuanbin Zhu, and Robin Lee for their paper “Methods to account for shallow site effects in hybrid broadband ground-motion simulations,” published in Earthquake Spectra, Vol. 41, No. 2 (May 2025). The Outstanding Paper Award recognizes authors of Earthquake Spectra papers judged to be outstanding contributions to earthquake hazard mitigation. Papers must have made a significant impact on the profession, provided a significant advance in the state-of-the-art or understanding of a particular topic, be of exceptional technical quality with concise and informative illustrations, and be well-written for a broad audience.

According to the award citation, “The paper is particularly valuable for its practical guidance, illustrating the necessary trade-offs between model complexity and predictive accuracy given the available site characterization. Ultimately, this research advances the state-of-the-art in creating realistic, physics-based ground motions for engineering applications.”

First author Felipe Kuncar (M.EERI 2023) is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Canterbury and an Emerging Investigator of QuakeCoRE: New Zealand’s Centre for Earthquake Resilience. This paper forms part of his doctoral research, which he completed at the University of Canterbury, in Brendon Bradley’s research group. Felipe also holds an MSc and a Civil Engineering degree from Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María in Chile. Read more about the paper’s authorship team on EERI’s website.

For more information about the Outstanding Paper Award, visit the EERI awards and honors page.

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NEWS OF THE INSTITUTE

Nominate or Apply for an EERI Award or Honor by June 30!

Nominate a colleague today for one of EERI’s prestigious awards! The selection committees depend on your nominations to identify members whose contributions should be recognized. The committees consider all nominations and provide recommendations to the EERI Board of Directors.

Nomination and Application Process:

Nominations or applications are being accepted for the Housner Medal, Alquist Medal, Distinguished Lecturer, Honorary Member, Bolt Medal, Joyner Lecturer, Shah Prize, and Early Career Member Award. Please review each award's description, criteria, and nomination requirements and submit the appropriate form. All nominations and applications are due June 30, 2026 at 11:59 PM Pacific Time.

View this news post for more information.

Please Welcome our New Communications Coordinator Francesca Mazzoni Jofre!

EERI is excited to welcome Francesca Jofre as our Communications Coordinator. Francesca first joined EERI in March in a part-time capacity and transitioned into the full-time role on June 1, quickly becoming an integral member of the team.

In her role, Francesca manages EERI’s communications across multiple platforms, including The Pulse newsletter, weekly eblasts, social media channels, website content, and outreach campaigns. She works closely with staff, and others, to help communicate EERI’s programs, events, and initiatives to members and the broader earthquake resilience community.

Francesca recently earned a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Oregon concentrating in Marketing and Finance. Her background combines communications, marketing, analytics, and content development, along with experience supporting nonprofit and educational initiatives.

Outside of work, Francesca enjoys traveling, snowboarding, motorcycle riding, and spending time outdoors. She is excited to help strengthen EERI’s communications and further advance the Institute’s mission of increasing earthquake resilience worldwide.

Please Welcome our New Program Coordinator Olivia VanBuskirk!

EERI is excited to welcome Olivia VanBuskirk to the team as our new Program Coordinator. In this role, Olivia will be managing webinars, contributing to Learning from Earthquakes, and working with other EERI committees and programs. Olivia recently graduated from the University of Oklahoma with her PhD in geography and environmental sustainability. Her previous work focused on building equitable resilience to climate and other natural hazards. Olivia also holds an M.S. in geography and environmental sustainability from the University of Oklahoma and a dual B.S. in meteorology and geography (geographic information science) from Central Michigan University. She is looking forward to using her diverse background to support the EERI community in increasing equitable resilience to earthquakes around the world.

Outside of work, you can often find Olivia baking, reading, running, or spending time outside where she lives in southeast Michigan with her partner and two cats!

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LEARNING FROM EARTHQUAKES

Update on EERI response to M7.8 Philippines Earthquake

EERI’s Learning From Earthquakes (LFE) program continues to monitor the impacts of the M7.8 earthquake that struck off the coast of Mindanao, Philippines on June 8, 2026. LFE’s Virtual Earthquake Reconnaissance Team (VERT) has been activated to develop a short report on preliminary impacts. The VERT report will be available soon. EERI is also in communication with local members to determine if there are any opportunities for local reconnaissance. 

If you have information to share, are part of an organization that is planning to conduct earthquake reconnaissance, or wish to be updated on opportunities to participate in LFE activities responding to this earthquake, please share information via the Google form here.

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WEBINARS

Earthquake Spectra Showcase Webinar: February 2026 Issue Highlights

June 24, 2026

11:00 AM - 12:00 PM Pacific Time

REGISTER HERE

Join us for the latest in this EERI webinar series showcasing papers of interest from each new issue of Earthquake Spectra! This webinar will feature two papers from the February 2026 issue: 

• Host-To-Target Site Response Adjustments for Site-Specific Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis by Albert R. Kottke, James Kaklamanos, Adrian Rodriguez-Marek, Robert R. Youngs, Julian J. Bommer, Linda Al Atik, David M. Boore, Suzette J. Payne, Blaine M. Bockholt, and Glenn Russell

• Utilization of Spatially Distributed mHVSR to Assess the Effectiveness of Ground Response Analysis by Francisco Javier G. Ornelas, Christopher A. de la Torre, and Jonathan P. Stewart

For more details, and to register, visit: https://my.eeri.org/events/event-details/?id=d582d5c9-045a-f111-89e7-7c1e529b2b8d. 

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

Volunteer Judges Needed for the 2026 SDC at 13NCEE in Portland

The Student Leadership Council is looking for judges for the annual Seismic Design Competition, taking place July 13-17, 2026 in Portland, Oregon.

Judges are extremely important to the SDC! This year’s judging takes place from 9:00AM to 6:15PM Pacific Time on Wednesday, July 15, 2026. If you are available and would like to volunteer to judge, please fill out this form, including the time slots in which you are available by June 22nd, 2026.

Please note that you must be on site to participate as a judge. SDC participants are not allowed to be judges. If you have any questions about this opportunity, please contact [email protected]. 

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SUBSCRIBING MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

Bronze Members

GeoEngineers is an employee-owned earth science and engineering firm with 20 offices nationwide. Founded in 1980, GeoEngineers is a collection of professionals passionate about using earth science and engineering to help our clients find a balance between human needs and the earth’s physical systems. The geotechnical engineers on our Performance-Based Design (PBD) Team use state-of-the-art techniques to predict how buildings and earth structures will response under a variety of loading scenarios. The team specializes in earthquake engineering and seismology, soft-ground sites, numerical modeling, and system performance. Our seismic hazard assessment approach uses both state-of-the-practice and state-of-the-art engineering analysis methods.

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Swiss manufacturer GeoSIG provides earthquake, seismic, structural and industrial solutions for measuring, monitoring and alarm. Decades of ISO certified innovation, design, development and manufacture of a diverse range of high reliability precision instruments and versatile software, with myriad of installations across every continent; deliver the testimony to our global presence and our ability to provide solutions to cater for demanding applications, with an unreserved commitment to customer satisfaction and making our world safer.

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NEWS OF THE PROFESSION

Links to Recent News

• Strongest earthquake in nearly 150 years hits off Cuba, shakes Mexico, Florida (The Straits Times)

• Aftershocks complicate recovery from quake that killed 45 and displaced thousands (ABC News)

• With ShakeAlert installations complete, researchers explore offshore expansion (University of Washington News)

• Powerful earthquake in southern Philippines leaves at least 37 dead (The Guardian)

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