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Christopher Segura (Fed)
Research Structural Engineer
Dr. Christopher Segura is a Research Structural Engineer within the Engineering Laboratory (EL) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). As a member of the EL’s Earthquake Engineering Group, Dr. Segura conducts research aimed at reducing risks to the built environment caused by earthquakes and other extreme loads. His research interests include earthquake engineering, performance-based seismic design of buildings and bridges, nonlinear modeling of reinforced concrete structures, large-scale structural testing, uncertainty quantification, and advancement of low-damage earthquake-resistant structural systems.
At NIST, Dr. Segura leads components of large, multi-year projects. Current work includes a project developing experimental and analytical data to better understand the seismic behavior of reinforced concrete walls and coupling beams constructed with high-strength (Grade 100) steel reinforcement; and another project evaluating the impact of material, modeling, and earthquake demand (record-to-record) uncertainty on seismic performance evaluations of reinforced concrete buildings and bridges. He is also a Co-PI for the EL’s Performance-based Engineering Research for Multi-hazards (PERFORM) Structural Testbed, a large-scale reconfigurable structural testing facility that enables experimental research on the performance of structures under extreme loads. While at NIST, Dr. Segura has participated in disaster and failure studies as a member of NIST teams deployed to Anchorage, AK, following the 2018 Cook Inlet Earthquake, and to Panama City, FL, following Hurricane Michael (2018).
Prior to joining NIST in 2017, Dr. Segura was a graduate researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles where he completed his Ph.D. Motivated by unexpected damage to reinforced concrete (RC) structures in earthquakes in Chile (2010) and New Zealand (2011), his Ph.D. research incorporated large-scale structural testing to characterize seismic performance limitations for RC structural wall buildings.
Dr. Segura is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the American Concrete Institute (ACI), the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI), and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE). He serves on ACI Committee 133 Disaster Reconnaissance, ACI 369 Seismic Repair and Rehabilitation, and ACI 374 Performance-Based Seismic Design of Concrete Buildings.