PEER coordinates a 10-week summer internship program for undergraduate students that is focused on the theme of earthquake resilient communities. With funding from the National Science Program, eleven interns from a variety of backgrounds and universities participated in the 2012 program.
To show the importance of multidisciplinary cooperation and collaboration, PEER assigns participating undergraduate interns with a project in one of the following disciplines: structural engineering, geotechnical engineering, risk mitigation, urban planning, or public policy. The interns are then assigned faculty and graduate student mentors who help them complete a unique research project at one of the three partnering research sites: University of California Davis, University of Washington, and University of California Berkeley.
As a final research deliverable, each intern was required to prepare a final research report. PEER report 2012/07, “Earthquake Engineering for Resilient Communities: 2012 PEER Internship Program Research Report Collection” is a compilation of the final research papers written by the 2012 interns. Professor Stephen Mahin, the project PI, and Heidi Tremayne, the REU program coordinator, are editors of this report.
Visit the PEER publications page to download a free color pdf of the report.
A list of the institutions, projects, interns, and mentors is listed below:
University of California, Berkeley
- – “Ductility of Reinforced Concrete Shear Wall Boundary Elements in Compression” was completed by intern Dustin Cook under the supervision of the following mentors: Professor Jack Moehle and Duy Vu To.
- – “Exploring Behavior of Thin Shear Wall Boundary Elements in Compression” was completed by intern Andrew Lo under the supervision of the following mentors: Professor Jack Moehle and Duy Vu To.
- – “The Seismic Performance Observatory” was completed by intern Dorian Krausz under the supervision of the following mentors: Professor Stephen Mahin and Dr. Vesna Terzic.
- – “Maximizing Learning from Real Earthquakes” was completed by intern Eduardo Vega under the supervision of the following mentors: Professor Stephen Mahin and Dr. Vesna Terzic.
University of California, Davis
- – “Stimulating In Situ Soil Bacteria for Bio-Cementation of Sands” was completed by intern Collin Anderson under the supervision of the following mentors: Professors Jason DeJong.
- – “The Effect of Plasticity on Intermediate Soil Compressibility” was completed by intern Nicole McCurdy under the supervision of the following mentors: Professors Jason DeJong and Ross Boulanger, and Adam Price.
- – “Risk-Based Levee System Analysis with Multiple Failure Modes” was completed by intern Paul Shipman under the supervision of the following mentors: Professor Jay Lund and Nathan Burley.
- – “Multi-Mode Probability of Levee Failure Curves” was completed by intern Alexander Sturm under the supervision of the following mentors: Professor Jay Lund and Nathan Burley.
University of Washington
- – “Exploration of Earthquake Intensity Measure Relationships with Pore Pressure and Liquefaction”was completed by intern Michael Erceg under the supervision of the following mentors: Professor Steve Kramer and Samuel Sideras.
- – “Stainless Steel Reinforcement in Unbonded, Pre-Tensioned Bridge Bent System” was completed by intern Carlos Esparza under the supervision of the following mentors: Professors Marc Eberhard and John Stanton, and Olafur Haraldsson.
- – “Bond Capacity of Steel Epoxy-Coated and Uncoated Pre-Stressing Strands” was completed by intern Jose Jimenez under the supervision of the following mentors: Professors Marc Eberhard and John Stanton, and Olafur Haraldsson.
- – “Testing the Integrity of Steel Gravity Frames subjected to large Vertical Deflections: Connection Component and Bolt Tests” was completed by intern Stephanie Lopez Cruz under the supervision of the following mentors: Professor Jeffrey Berman and Jonathan Weigand.
Funding for the 2012 PEER Internship Program is provided by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. EEC-1063138, as a part of NSF’s Research Experiences for Undergraduate (REU) Program.
For more information visit the PEER Internship Program page.