Academy of Distinguished Alumni
Judith Mitrani-Reiser Ph.D.
Inducted to the Academy of Distinguished Alumni on
Judith Mitrani-Reiser received her M.S. degree (2001) in Structural Engineering, Mechanics, and Materials from the University of California, Berkeley. She also received her B.S. degree (2000) in Civil and Coastal Engineering from the University of Florida and her Ph.D. in Applied Mechanics from the California Institute of Technology. Following graduation, she joined the faculty of Johns Hopkins University in the Departments of Civil Engineering and of Emergency Medicine. In 2016 she joined the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as Director of the Disaster and Failure Studies program and currently serves as the Associate Chief of the Materials and Structures System Division.
Dr. Mitrani-Reiser is recognized as a preeminent authority in disaster science and has dedicated her career to reduction of losses from disasters and failures in our built environment. At NIST she provides leadership for national programs, including the National Construction Safety Team, the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program, and the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program. She has led research projects in multi-hazard impacts, community resilience, evacuation modeling, and performance of healthcare facilities. She currently is a member of the National Construction Safety Team evaluating the impacts of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and leads NIST's investigation of the partial collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida.
Dr. Mitrani-Reiser currently serves as Vice President of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute and on the Executive Committee of Collaborative Reporting for Safer Structures - US. She was Associate Editor of the ASCE Natural Hazards Review and Vice Chair of ASCE's Multi-Hazard Risk Mitigation Committee. She received the Chancellor's Predoctoral Opportunity Fellowship from UC Berkeley, the George Housner Fellowship from Caltech, and a Florida Scholarship from the University of Florida. Dr. Mitrani-Reiser is a tireless advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion in CEE, and serves as a role model for aspiring women and Hispanic professionals.
Dr. Mitrani-Reiser has maintained close collaborative relationships with her colleagues at UC Berkeley CEE in center initiatives, research projects, and proposals. For PEER, she led research to benchmark probabilistic methods for estimating losses and the seismic performance of code-conforming reinforced-concrete buildings, ultimately translating the work into building design guidelines (FEMA P-58). She gave plenaries and keynotes at PEER meetings and participated in UCB/PEER’s Nepal Earthquake Debrief in 2015. She also hosted visiting graduate students and sat on PhD Committees of PEER students, recruited PhD students from Berkeley CEE as postdocs in her research group, and advised top Hopkins undergraduate students to apply/attend Berkeley CEE.