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Professor Constantin Christopoulos (centre in white golf shirt) with earthquake engineering seminar participants in Haiti.

University of Toronto Engineering Professor Constantin Christopoulos (CivE) traveled to Haiti to join international instructors in delivering a two-day short course as part of a three-week earthquake engineering seminar in August.

There is perhaps no place where the lessons were more needed and nowhere were it was more difficult to deliver. On January 12, 2010, more than 316,000 people died due to a 7.0 earthquake that devastated the Caribbean nation.

The destruction that occurred in Haiti left the nation’s universities in ruins. With teaching spaces, labs and libraries destroyed, and faculty members among the killed or injured, help from abroad is needed to deliver the lessons Haiti’s engineering community requires.

“I responded to an international call seeking French-speaking experts in the field,” explains Professor Christopoulos, whose research focuses on structural dynamics and earthquake engineering.

The program was organized by MCEER at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York and hosted by l’Université Quisqueya in Haiti.

Professor Chistopoulos’ seminar focused on making steel structures more resistant to earthquakes.

“What occurred in Haiti was not simply an act of God. It was definitely an extreme natural event but its impact on structures could have been limited and catastrophic collapses could have been prevented,” Professor Chistopoulos explains.

More than 130 participants attended the seminar, which included current engineering students, local experts and members of the Haitian Ministry of Public Works. Planning has begun on establishing a new Master’s degree in earthquake engineering at the l’Université Quisqueya, which would be delivered by a team of instructors from other international institutions.

As Haiti is being rebuilt, Professor Chistopoulos notes that incorporating the latest earthquake resistant technology will be necessary to ensure the failures of 2010 are not repeated.

“Haiti had no building codes. Given our experience and expertise here in Canada, we can provide assistance and guidance,” he says, though he points out that it is not possible to just hand over advanced building design guidelines and expect that it would be fully implemented. “We will have to work with Haitian officials to tailor the code to be practically applied to their building environment.”

Prior to his trip in August, Professor Christopoulos’ only connection to Haiti was growing up in Montreal surrounded by its large Haitian expatriate community. However, he intends to remain involved by developing course options andresearching how earthquake resistant technology can be applied in Haiti.

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