Advancing Community Disaster Resilience with Experimental, Field-based and Simulation Methods

Abstract:  

Hurricanes, wildfires, floods, tornadoes, and earthquakes: each year, disaster strikes leaving communities with damaged infrastructure, disrupted services, and displaced households. This presentation will share how the Sutley Research Group is using experimental, field-based and simulation methods to advance knowledge, create decision-making tools, and inform changes to codes, standards, and disaster recovery policies. The presentation will feature the on-going multi-year experimental program being done in collaboration with the University of Alabama and Florida International University focused on advancing the wind performance of manufactured homes, as well as findings from a seven-year longitudinal field study after Hurricane Matthew with collaborators from the University of Alabama and nearly a dozen other U.S. institutions. Data generated from these projects, and others, are used to develop novel workflows that integrate physical infrastructure and socio-economic systems for aiding risk-based decision making. The presentation will conclude with identifying continued research gaps, and a call for action in

Speaker Bio: Dr. Sutley received B.S. and M.S. degrees in civil engineering from the University of Alabama in 2010 and 2011, and a PhD in civil engineering from Colorado State University in 2015. In 2015, Dr. Sutley began a tenure track position at the University of Kansas. Now, Dr. Sutley is the Associate Dean of Impact and Belonging, Director of the IHAWKe Diversity and Women’s Programs, Director of the Self Engineering Leadership Fellows Program and Associate Professor in structural engineering at the University of Kansas. Dr. Sutley leads an interdisciplinary research program on community disaster resilience for which she received early career awards in 2019 from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and the National Science Foundation. KU recognized Dr. Sutley as a Miller Faculty Scholar in 2021 and Bellows Faculty Scholar in 2024 for outstanding research, teaching, and service. This past year, the University of Alabama graduate school recognized Dr. Sutley as a Centennial Scholar; one of 100 graduates who bring distinction to the University over the past 100 years. She holds national leadership positions on the Structural Engineering Institute’s Board of Governors, the Executive Committee of the Infrastructure Resilience Division of the American Society of Civil Engineers and on the Applied Technology Council’s Board of Direction.