Adda Athanasopoulos-Zekkos’ research focuses on the development of new analytical and design solutions to soil dynamics problems such as the resiliency of flood protection systems and soil structures under extreme loading conditions including hurricanes and earthquakes. Her current research projects investigate the response of flood protection systems, the performance of critical systems such as ports during earthquakes, the effects of man-induced vibrations from pile driving in dense urban environments, and the use of new materials and field testing to inform efficient and sustainable maintenance strategies of aging systems. along with a number of co-authors, Adda has published a number of recent articles related to catastrophic risks:
Carey, T. J., Mason, H. B., Asimaki, D., Athanasopoulos-Zekkos, A., Garcia, F. E., Gray, B., ... & Nweke, C. C. (2023). The 2022 Chihshang, Taiwan, Earthquake: Initial GEER Team Observations. Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, 149(5), 02823002.
Russo, B. M., Athanasopoulos-Zekkos, A., & Kim, J. (2023). Effect of Grain Size of Granular Soils on Shear Wave Velocity and Electrical Resistivity for Levee Health Monitoring. In Geo-Congress 2023 (pp. 415-423).
Roy, J., Rollins, K. M., Athanasopoulos-Zekkos, A., Harper, M., Linton, N., Basham, M., ... & Zekkos, D. (2022). Gravel liquefaction assessment using dynamic cone penetration and shear wave velocity tests based on field performance from the 1964 Alaska earthquake. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, 160, 107357.
In The Dynamics of Risk, Louise Comfort sets the global problem of seismic risk in the framework of complex adaptive systems to explore how the consequences of such events ripple across jurisdictions, communities, and organizations in complex societies, triggering unexpected alliances but also exposing social, economic, and legal gaps. The book assesses how the networks of organizations involved in response and recovery adapted and acted collectively after the twelve earthquakes it examines. It describes how advances in information technology enabled some communities to anticipate seismic risk better and to manage response and recovery operations more effectively, decreasing losses.