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Photos of Marc Levitan and Long Phan are part of a collage of tornado images labeled: Tornado Resiliency Building Code Research

NIST Research Is Setting the Standard to Help Buildings Withstand Tornadoes

May 6, 2024

Two NIST researchers have been recognized for their work to create new standards for buildings that can better withstand tornadoes.

A man in safety gear crouches to examine a damaged wall inside a building after an earthquake.

The Highs and Lows of Studying the Aftermath of One of Turkey’s Deadliest Earthquakes

October 16, 2023

Matthew Speicher

Our goal at NIST is to not only document and learn from disasters, but to also spur innovation and make recommendations to help lessen the impact of the next disaster.

Collage includes four historical photos of Black men in military and office attire on background of gold, green, black and red.

From the Space Shuttle to Structural Engineering, NIST’s Tuskegee Airmen Left a Lasting Legacy in Service and Science

February 3, 2023

Megan King

Four of these men are now known to have continued their careers at NBS, though colleagues at the time didn’t know about their co-workers’ historic past.

Jazalyn Dukes poses in front of a display that reads "Engineering a Safer World."

How My Childhood Fascination With Bridges Helped Me Build a Career Protecting People and Buildings From Natural Disasters

January 31, 2023

Jazalyn Dukes

NIST research engineer Jazalyn Dukes talks about what inspired her career and gives some advice to girls considering a career in structural and civil engineering.

Camila Espina Young poses outdoors for a head shot

Hurricane Maria Recollections, Software Nostalgia, The Brothers Engineering: A Sample of Stories on NIST Social Media

November 2, 2022

Riley Wilson

The work happening at NIST can often be described as more than simply “work.”

A person in a hard hat surrounded by debris including a crushed car takes a picture of a concrete block with a phone.

NIST’s Investigations of Structural Disasters: What We Do and Why They Can Take Years to Complete

February 17, 2022

Tanya Brown-Giammanco

My Background in Disasters It seems as though I was born to be a disaster researcher. I can vividly remember seeking shelter during tornado warnings in the basement at friends’ or relatives’ houses, or in the church at the end of our street as a young child living in Wichita, Kansas. When I was 9

collage of images from the WTC disaster, a blueprint of an airplane, a representation of one of the towers, the word modeling

Analyzing the Aftermath of the Twin Towers Aircraft Impacts

August 12, 2021

Steven W. Kirkpatrick

I consider myself lucky to have been able to perform contract engineering research and consulting for my entire career. The work environment has been somewhere between industry research and academia. I’ve had opportunities to work with recognized experts at universities, national laboratories, in

a collage showing images of a crowd of people, an elevator, the word evacuation, a stairwell with the stairs marked as 1.5 meters wide, an icon of a telephone with the numbers 911, and a camera

Inside the Towers on 9/11: My Story of Investigating the WTC Evacuation

August 11, 2021

Jason Averill

The kickoff meeting On Nov. 1, 2002, in a small conference room on the Gaithersburg, Maryland, campus of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the trio of outside experts ( Dennis Mileti, Guylene Proulx and Norman Groner) hired to work on evacuation and emergency communication

collage showing rubble from the collapse of the towers, a mock up of a section of the towers, scientists looking at structural steel and the words Building and Fire Codes

20 Years Later: NIST's World Trade Center Investigation and Its Legacy

August 5, 2021

S. Shyam Sunder

The collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC) buildings following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was one of the worst-ever building disasters in recorded history — killing 2,749 people. More than 400 emergency responders were among those killed, the largest loss of life for this group in a

collage of blueprints for buildings and an airplane, a pile of rubble, a live fire test of a simulated office, and the word Reconstruction

Reconstructing the Fires That Brought Down WTC 1, 2 and 7

August 4, 2021

Richard G. Gann

Everyone has a story about where they were when they heard about the disaster universally called “9/11.” Mine begins in Ottawa, Canada. As chance would have it, I was there for a meeting of the Fire Safety Engineering Subcommittee of the International Organization for Standardization. One of the

partially knocked down fence in the foreground, a wildfire in the background

Knocking Down Fences for Fire Research

October 9, 2020

Rik Johnsson

Wildfires don’t stop where the wilderness ends. They burn through communities and neighborhoods, destroying property and taking lives. In 2018, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection alone reported 7,948 wildfire incidents, burning almost 2 million acres across the state and

Resilient Cedar Rapids: Rebuilding Better Pays Off

August 7, 2020

Juan Fung

Many cities in the United States have experienced or will experience devastating losses caused by a natural disaster. In the aftermath of a disaster, the question communities grapple with is how to invest in recovery. Understandably, the focus tends to be on building back as quickly as possible. But

white office building with a wedge top among other skyscrapers

Blown Away: Revisiting a Famous Engineering Case

June 19, 2019

Dat Duthinh

One of the undergraduate engineering courses that left a deep and lasting impression on me was a course on innovation and aesthetics in engineering taught by David Billington at Princeton University. So, when I read the story of a skyscraper in New York City that had to undergo secret emergency

Satellite photo of Hurricane Harvey making landfall on the Texas Gulf Coast

Before the Storm: Measuring and Predicting Hurricanes

May 24, 2018

Scott Weaver

The Atlantic hurricane season is now upon us, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has just released its 2018 seasonal hurricane outlook, which calls for a slightly above average season. The potential range of activity indicates that we could expect 10 to 16 named storms

Men working at construction site with wood planks on ground and gray house dangling in air by crane

Building Codes, Planning Key to Community Resilience

September 21, 2016

Dominic Sims

“Buildings built to the most modern building codes were the safest places to be during Hurricane Sandy.” Having spent most of my life in code enforcement, I’ve known this to be fact and have seen the evidence with my own eyes. But hearing New York City Chief Resilience Officer Daniel Zarrilli say it

A line of cars with fire and smoke nearby

Fighting Fire with Fire-Breathing Dragons

June 22, 2016

Sam Manzello

I’m a dragon wrangler. While that might sound like something straight out of Harry Potter or Game of Thrones, this isn’t fantasy, this is serious science. As a dragon wrangler, or more colloquially, a fire researcher, my job is to help protect people and property from fire’s devastating effects. My

Photo of damage from 2011 Joplin, Mo, tornado

Resilience Rises from Tragedy in Joplin

May 31, 2016

Marc Levitan

The May 22, 2011, tornado in Joplin, Mo., rated an EF-5—the most powerful ranking—on the Enhanced Fujita tornado intensity scale. It caused 161 fatalities and more than 1,000 injuries, making it the deadliest single tornado in the U.S. since we began keeping official records in 1950. With losses

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Building codes and standards

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