Paola Ceresa, PhD

Earthquake Engineer - Project Manager

Seismic Hazard and Risk Analysis



Paola Ceresa is a seismic risk specialist and project manager of risk-related projects at RED. She obtained her degree in Civil Engineering (structural engineering specialisation) at the University of Pavia with full marks. During the studies, she was a fellow of “Collegio Ghislieri”, one of the most prestigious colleges in Pavia. She then enrolled for the MSc and Ph.D programmes in Earthquake Engineering at ROSE School (University of Pavia and School of Advanced Studies of Pavia IUSS), completing her MSc thesis in 2004 and her Doctorate in 2007. She held a postdoctoral position in Structural Engineering at the Department of Structural Mechanics of the University of Pavia (2008-2010). She was Researcher of the Seismic Risk research team of the EUCENTRE Foundation (2010-2011). She held a position of Assistant Professor of Structural Engineering at IUSS (2011-2016), assisting with the coordination of the International MSc and Ph.D Programmes in Risk Emergency Management (REM) and Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Seismology (ROSE and MEEES) of the Graduate School for Understanding and Managing Extremes (UME School). She was the Deputy Coordinator of the FP7-SASPARM project (2013-2014) and the Research Unit Coordinator of the DG-ECHO SASPARM 2.0 project (2015-2016). She was a member of the Vulnerability and Territorial Management research team of the EUCENTRE Foundation (2011-2016). She was involved in research projects for the seismic risk evaluation of the national road transport network and of Italian school buildings (funded by the Italian Civil Protection Department), and for real-time seismic risk assessment (FP7-NERA) of buildings. In addition, she also supervises different MSc and Ph.D students of the UME School in their research theses and serves as reviewer of several international peer-review journals and conferences.

Paola is interested in numerical simulations of the response of buildings and bridges, study of the seismic response of buildings and bridges, assessment of existing buildings and bridges, development of analytical models for dynamic systems, vulnerability and risk analysis of structures. Her current work is mainly focused on the development of vulnerability and risk models and the assessment of losses. Furthermore, she serves as project manager for risk analyses in projects related to earthquakes and floods.

Selected publications:

  • Kagermanov A, Ceresa P (2016). Physically Based Cyclic Tensile Model for RC Membrane Elements, Journal of Structural Engineering (ASCE), 142(12). Doi: 10.1061/(ASCE)ST.1943-541X.0001590, 04016118.
  • Grigoratos I, Dabeeek J, Faravelli M, Di Meo A, Cerchiello V, Borzi B, Monteiro R, Ceresa P (2016). “Development of a fragility and exposure model for Palestine – Application to the city of Nablus”. Procedia Engineering, 161, Doi: 10.1016/j.proeng.2016.08.797.
  • Fagà E, Ceresa P, Nascimbene R, Moratti M, Pavese A (2016). Modelling curved surface sliding bearings with bilinear constitutive law: effects on the response of seismically isolated buildings, Materials and Structures, 49(6). Doi: 10.1617/s11527-015-0642-2
  • orzi B, Ceresa P, Franchin P, Noto F, Calvi GM and Pinto PE (2015). Seismic Vulnerability of the Italian Roadway Bridge Stock, Earthquake Spectra, 31(4). Doi: 10.1193/070413EQS190M
  • Monteiro R, Ceresa P, Cerchiello V, Dabeek J, Di Meo A, Borzi B (2016). Towards integrated seismic risk assessment in Palestine – Application to the city of Nablus. ECCOMAS Congress 2016 - Proceedings of the 7th European Congress on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences and Engineering
  • Borzi B, Ceresa P, Faravelli M, Fiorini E, Onida M (2013). “Seismic Risk Assessment of Italian School Buildings”. Computational methods in applied sciences, 30. Doi:10.1007/978-94-007-6573-3_15 C.
  • Ceresa P, Brezzi F, Calvi GM, Pinho R (2012) “Analytical modelling of a large-scale dynamic testing facility”, Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics, 41(2). Doi. 10.1002/eqe.1128.
  • Ceresa P, Petrini L, Pinho R, Sousa R (2009). “A fibre flexure-shear model for seismic analysis of RC-framed structures”, Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics, 38(5). Doi: 10.1002/eqe.894.
  • Curriculum vitae:
  • Phone: (+39) 0382-22518
  • Email: paola (dot) ceresa (at) redrisk (dot) com