Armen Der Kiureghian
received his B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Tehran, Iran,
and his Ph.D. in Structural Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
in 1975. After three years at the University of Southern California, he joined the faculty at the
University of California at Berkeley, where he has served as Assistant Professor (1978-81),
Associate Professor (1981-85), Professor (1985- ), Vice Chair (1990-93) and Chair (1997-2001) of the
Structural Engineering, Mechanics and Materials Program and as
Vice Chair for Instruction in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering.
Since July 1999, he has held the Taisei Chair in Civil Engineering in the College of Engineering at UC Berkeley.
After the devastating Spitak earthquake of 1988 in Armenia, he was instrumental in establishing the
American University of Armenia in Yerevan
as an affiliate of the University of California. He served as the founding Dean of the
College of Engineering
of AUA during 1991-2007 concurrently with his position at Berkeley. He also served as the founding Director of the
Engineering Research Center of AUA from 1991 to 2004.
He continues to serve is a founding member of the Board of Trustees of the
American University of Armenia Corporation.
Der Kiureghian is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers
(ASCE), the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute
(EERI), the Seismological Society of America
(SSA),
the Earthquake Engineering Association of Armenia (EEAA),
the International Association for Structural Safety and Reliability
(IASSAR),
and the Civil Engineering Risk and Reliability Association
(CERRA).
He is a past President of CERRA and was in charge of its ICASP9 conference in San Francisco, July 6-9, 2003.
He is also serving as the Chair of the IASSAR
Sub-Committee 3 on Structural
Reliability and Optimizationas. During 1998-2004, he served on the Board of
CUREE (Consortium of Universities for Research in
Earthquake Engineering), including four years as the Treasurer of the Board.
In the past, he has served as the Chair of the ASCE Engineering Mechanics Division Technical
Committee on Probabilistic Methods and as Vice Chair of the Editorial
Board of its Journal of Engineering Mechanics. Currently he serves on the editorial boards of several
journals, including Probabilistic Engineering Mechanics, Structural Safety,
Earthquake Engineering & Structural Dynamics, Earthquake Spectra
and International Journal of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering.
Der Kiureghian is the receipient of several awards, including:
- 1988: Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize, ASCE
- 1989: Fulbright Distinguished Professor, University of Lubljana, Slovenia
- 1989: Mitsubishi Chair Visiting Professor, Tokyo University, Japan
- 1994: Elected Foreign Member, National Academy of Engineering of Armenia
- 1998: Elected Foreign Member, National Academy of Sciences of Armenia
- 1999: CERRA Award, Civil Engineering Risk and Reliability Association
- 2001: Movses Khorenatsi Medal, Government of Armenia
- 2004: Distinguished Alumnus, Faculty of Engineering, Tehran University, Iran
- 2006: Distinguished Alumnus, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- 2006: Alfred M. Freudenthal Medal, Engineering Mechanics Division, ASCE
- 2006: Thomas A. Middlebrooks Award, Goe-Institute, ASCE
- 2008: 2007 Best Paper Award, Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, ASCE
Der Kiureghian's teaching and research interests are in the areas of structural reliability, risk analysis,
random vibrations and earthquake engineering. He has pioneered methods for safety and reliability
assessment of complex structures and for stochastic seismic analysis of buildings,
bridges and critical equipment. He has more than 300 publications,
including more than 100 in archival journals and as book chapters.