As we approach the end of this year, I wanted to take a moment to remind you that it’s renewal season—so if you haven’t already renewed your EERI membership for 2025, make sure to do so soon so you can stay involved and continue to receive EERI news and membership benefits like Spectra access. This year we also introduced a new lifetime membership option—if you meet the criteria and would prefer to skip the step of renewing each year, consider purchasing a lifetime membership instead. The board will be meeting this month to finalize our 2025 budget, and I hope to see strong renewal numbers reported!
I’m happy to celebrate the successful launch of EERI’s new membership database and member portal earlier this fall, and hope you’ve had a chance to log on and explore. We’ll be introducing more features in the new year. 2025 will also bring other exciting developments from Learning From Earthquakes and other EERI programs. These include forthcoming reports and a webinar from the LFE/SSEER follow-up reconnaissance trip to Turkey to share their findings, and the return of the LFE Travel Study program with a trip to Mexico in September—if you know any early career colleagues who might be interested, make sure to share the announcement! We are also planning an LFE workshop on earthquake reconnaissance agenda development and another on the Next-Generation Liquefaction (NGL) project, as well as a busy 2025 webinar program. These workshops will be a great opportunity to come together while we pause our annual meeting schedule and focus on planning for the 13th National Conference on Earthquake Engineering in Portland in 2026. I am also looking forward to the 2025 Undergraduate Seismic Design Competition, which will be held at UC Berkeley in April—stay tuned for more information on how members can attend Shaking Day and cheer on the teams! Thank you again to our Anchor Sponsor CSI and the other SDC sponsors for making this important EERI event possible.
Finally, the new year will also see the launch of a new strategic planning process to develop EERI’s 2026-2030 strategic plan. We want to hear your input on how EERI can pursue our mission of increasing earthquake resilience in the years to come—so feel free to get in touch with me or with other members of the Board to share your ideas.
Janiele Maffei (M.EERI 1992)
EERI President
