Andrew Whittaker

Andrew Whittaker is a SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering at the University at Buffalo. Whittaker serves as the Director of MCEER and the Institute of Bridge Engineering. He is a registered civil and structural engineer in the State of California. Whittaker served as the Vice-President and President of the Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering (www.curee.org) from 2003 to 2011, and on the Board of Directors of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (www.eeri.org) and the World Seismic Safety Initiative from 2008 to 2010, and on the Advisory Committee for the Southern California Earthquake Center from 2010 to 2017. Currently, he is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Association for Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology. Whittaker made significant contributions to the first generation of tools for performance-based earthquake engineering (FEMA 273/274, 1992-1997) and led the structural engineering team that developed the second generation of these tools (FEMA P58, 2000-2013). Whittaker serves on a number of national committees including ASCE 4, ASCE 7, ASCE 43, ASCE 59, ASCE Codes and Standards, and ACI 349. He is the Chair of the ASCE Nuclear Standards Committee. Whittaker’s contributions have been recognized through the 2017 ASCE Walter P. Moore Jnr. Award and the 2017 ASCE Stephen D. Bechtel Jnr. Energy Award. He is a Fellow of ASCE, SEI, and ACI. His research interests are broad and include earthquake, blast and impact engineering of buildings, bridges and nuclear structures. The US National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, US Federal Highway Administration, and US Department of Transportation fund his research. Whittaker consults to federal agencies, regulators, consultancies, contractors, and power utilities in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe, Asia and Australia.