Assistant Professor Susu Xu was awarded a grant through the NSF-NIST Disaster Resilience Research Grants program to support her work in disaster resilience. The joint initiative, backed by NSF’s $3.9 million and NIST’s $3.2 million investments, awarded 18 grants in total—all of which support research to advance the understanding, policies, designs, and practices to mitigate the impact of natural hazards.
Xu’s research aims to improve resilience by analyzing hazards and damage patterns after seismic events. Her research will allow for detailed seismic risk analyses through the development and use of a novel causality-informed system that provides rapid, scalable, and joint assessments of cascading seismic hazards that following an initial seismic event. Her research will also enable the study of other natural disasters that have cascading community impact.
“Understanding the locations and extents of hazards immediately after an event such as an earthquake is critical for facilitating real-time responses including timely evacuation, search and rescue, and effective allocations of limited resources. The goal is to help communities reduce vulnerabilities and improve their ability to recover from natural disasters,” said Xu.