Chris Poland

Chris Poland was the Joyner Lecturer for 2008. He is Chairman and CEO of Degenkolb Engineers, one of the nation’s leading structural engineering firms. His research has contributed to the development of federal standards for seismic evaluations and mitigation for all federal buildings and numerous guidelines related to earthquake hazard reduction activities such as the National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Series Program (NEHRP) handbooks for the seismic evaluation of existing buildings. He has participated in numerous policy-changing research projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the National Research Council of the National Academy of Engineering. His Joyner Lecture is entitled “Transparent Seismic Mitigation for Community Resilience.”