While the guidelines and this webinar are intended for engineering professionals to use as guidance for professional practice, both may also be useful for others for information purposes, such as consultants, developers, constructors, building officials, and the general public.
Perry Adebar, is Professor of Structural Engineering at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Adebar is chair of the Standing Committee on Earthquake Design (SC-ED), which writes the seismic design provisions in the National Building Code of Canada, vice-chair of Technical Committee CSA A23.3, which writes the Canadian Standard for the structural design of concrete buildings, and chair of the CSA A23.3 Sub-committee on seismic design of concrete buildings.
Dr. Armin Bebamzadeh, P.Eng., is an active structural engineer and a research associate at the Earthquake Engineering Research Facility (EERF) at UBC. He has more than 15 years of experience in structural analysis and performance-based design. He has written over 100 technical papers and reports related to the seismic behaviour of structures, and has also developed tools to facilitate the performance-based design of tall buildings that are now used by various firms in Vancouver.
Dr. Bebamzadeh is part of the team that has received several awards for the Seismic Retrofit Guidelines including the Champions of Earthquake Resilience Award (2015), the Engineering a Better Canada Award (2013), the Lieutenant Governor’s Award of Excellence, BC (2013), and the Innovation Award of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering (2010).
Dr. Ehsan Dezhdar is a structural engineer with 10 years of experience in the design of reinforced concrete buildings. With a background of performing numerous nonlinear time history analyses of high-rise concrete shear walls during his PhD studies, Ehsan is very involved in the performance-based design of towers all over the west coast of the USA. Ehsan has published articles in various international conferences on earthquake engineering.
Mehrak earned his master’s degree in civil engineering at the University of Tehran with a top-ranking award and is now an Associate at Dialog. Mehrak thrives on a good challenge and fearlessly pursues innovative project solutions with out-of-the-box thinking. His side interest in computer programming is another contributing factor in Mehrak’s accuracy and punctual project delivery. He has developed numerous programs designed to exchange data and facilitate collaboration between ETABS, Excel, AutoCAD, and Revit. Throughout his extensive career, Mehrak has collaborated on numerous seismic upgrade projects. He is a member of Engineers and Geoscientists BC’s Seismic Peer Review committee and Technical Review Board. He has been an active voting member of the CSA concrete code committee since 2014.
A graduate of the University of British Columbia, James has a strong knowledge of seismic design and a solid understanding of how to design efficient structures that incorporate excellent seismic detailing. He draws on his knowledge from a wide range of experience to provide practical design solutions that consider constructability, worked on a wide range of interesting and challenging projects across Canada and the United States, including Queen Mary and Lord Kitchener Elementary Schools, the Wave and Linea Towers, Park Avenue and Park Boulevard Towers, the International Trade Center in Richmond and the YMCA Coquitlam and YMCA Chilliwack facilities. James has worked on a number of large resort projects in United States and is licensed as a professional engineer in California.
As a Practice Advisor with Engineers and Geoscientists BC, Allison is responsible for managing the development of professional practice guidelines and practice advisories for a variety of different areas of practice, providing practice advice services, as well as liaising with industry stakeholders and supporting a number of advisory and working groups for the development of professional practice guidance. Allison is a registered professional engineer with experience in the structural design of buildings. She holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in civil engineering from McGill University. Prior to joining Engineers and Geoscientists BC, Allison worked as a project engineer designing a variety of buildings from high-end custom homes to recreation centres to mid-rise concrete towers. The majority of her experience is on the design and project management of custom high-end homes and estates.
John is a structural engineer with over 35 years’ experience relating to the structural and seismic analysis and design of both infrastructure and buildings. He has worked on a wide variety of new projects, as well as hundreds of seismic upgrade projects developing and incorporating innovative schemes, such as Canada’s first base isolated building. These projects involved extensive use of nonlinear dynamic analysis, including non-linear soil structure interaction.
He is past Chair, Standing Committee on Earthquake Design (SC-ED), NBCC and current Chair of SC-ED’s Task Group on Resilience and Performance Based Design and Working Group on Seismic Isolation and Supplementary Energy Dissipation.
Anthony El-Araj, is a Principal at Glotman Simpson and a Project Manager with 20 years of structural design experience. He focuses on technically intensive projects with expertise in projects using reinforced concrete, post-tensioned concrete, structural steel, wood frame, and masonry.
From San Diego to Arizona to Whistler, Anthony has concentrated his strengths particularly on technically intensive projects. Anthony’s recent projects include TELUS Garden, UBC Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, the Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre at UBC, the exciting Whistler Peak to Peak Gondola, the Richmond Olympic Oval, and the “twisting” Olympic Village Parcel 4 residential project in Southeast False Creek.
Josif graduated from the University of Belgrade with a Bachelor of Science degree. Josif's reputation as the one of the strongest technical assets in RJC Vancouver's Structural Engineering Team has earned him respect among his peers and clients. He is esteemed for his role as a mentor and advisor for code interpretation and design. Josif's notable technical achievements include the seismic and wind design of buildings throughout North America. He was instrumental in helping with the design of Terrace House, 1285 West Hastings, and for the peer review of Brock Commons at the University of British Columbia.
