As we begin 2026, I want to thank our members for your continuing dedication and service to EERI. We estimate that our members contributed over 8000 hours of volunteer service to EERI in 2025—as committee members, chapter officers, Spectra reviewers, 13NCEE organizers, webinar speakers, Board members, and more! These achievements would not be possible without your expertise and commitment.
Here are some highlights of what we accomplished together in 2025:
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Our flagship Learning From Earthquakes (LFE) program continues to develop new agendas and approaches for post-earthquake reconnaissance. Last year, LFE monitored several significant earthquakes, including the M7.7 in Mandalay, Myanmar in March, the M6.3 in Paratebueno, Colombia in June, and the M8.8 earthquake and tsunami in Kamchatka, Russia in July. LFE collaborated with StEER and CEER on a joint report about the Colombia earthquake, and while it was not possible to deploy reconnaissance teams to Myanmar due to security issues, LFE and GHI co-hosted a webinar series on the impacts of that earthquake in Myanmar and Thailand. The new LFE Lifelines subcommittee launched in 2025 under the leadership of Albert Kottke and Brad Wham.
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Planning for the 13NCEE is in full swing. We Launched our Calls for Special Sessions and Papers for the 13th National Conference on Earthquake Engineering. We received more than 50 special session proposals and nearly 750 papers, and registration is now open!
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The EERI Undergraduate Seismic Design Competition (SDC) brought together more than 430 students from 48 teams representing 10 countries across 5 continents and 14 U.S. states, along with more than 15,200 remote viewers on a live YouTube stream, during the competition hosted at UC Berkeley.
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The Public Policy and Advocacy Committee continued our U.S. advocacy for seismic mitigation policy, NEHRP reauthorization, and funding for seismic programs, while also surveying the impacts of the changing U.S. federal funding landscape on our membership.
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Earthquake Spectra published five regular issues in 2025, and released several special collections. Our transition to our new publishing platform at Wiley is nearly complete and we look forward to connecting our members with the new content, website, and access instructions soon.
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The Oral History Program released two more volumes of Connections, featuring Robert A. Olson, a champion of public policies for the reduction of earthquake risk, and Haresh C. Shah, a pioneer in the early development of seismic hazard and catastrophe risk models. We also launched our archival Stanley Scott Interview Series.
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The 2025 LFE Travel Study Trip to Mexico in September 2025 broadened the perspectives of 24 participating early career professionals and graduate students by showing them first hand impacts of earthquakes and related policy changes.
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The Friedman Family Visiting Professional program successfully hosted 28 university lectures at EERI Student Chapters given by 19 professionals on topics including structural and geotechnical engineering, seismology, emergency management, risk analysis, lifelines, and industrial facilities.
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EERI’s Regional Chapters hosted lectures, social events, and workshops that brought together hundreds of members to network and learn. EERI hosted two workshops on the Next Generation Liquefaction Models, one in Northern California in May and a second in partnership with the Southern California Regional Chapter in Los Angeles in August. The San Diego Regional Chapter also hosted the 7th Kenji Ishihara Colloquium.
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EERI welcomed 11 new student chapters at universities in Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, South Korea, Turkey, and the United States. They joined over 100 student chapters, whose members conducted outreach and learning activities furthering EERI’s mission, from participating in the 2025 SDC to hosting campus visits from 25 Friedman Family Visiting Professionals.
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EERI hosted 16 webinars attended by an audience of 2300 people. Watch recordings of these webinars on our YouTube channel here!
In addition to these many activities, the Board of Directors spent much of 2025 visioning the future of EERI through a year-long process to develop a new strategic plan. The 2026-2028 plan will be released in early 2026. Members can expect to see a big focus on enhancing member learning and participation opportunities in the years ahead.
Now that 2026 has arrived, I even more eagerly anticipate seeing so many of you at the 13NCEE in Portland in July. This is EERI’s largest conference and only takes place every four years, so I hope that each of you will join us! The best registration rates will end in February, so make your plans to attend now.
EERI’s programs and committees will stay active and busy in 2026, so I hope you follow our newsletter closely as we launch new ways to engage with EERI. To hint at just a few, lookout for: the application to attend the 2026 LFE Travel Study Trip to Taiwan; advocacy opportunities for seismic mitigation policy and NEHRP reauthorization through PPA; volunteer opportunities to plan and contribute to the 2027 Annual Meeting; a new model for our Housner leadership training program; new LFE subcommittees on Tsunami and Risk, and more. Please stay tuned and encourage your colleagues and friends to join EERI and get involved in 2026!
In closing, I’d like to extend my thanks again to our many volunteers, donors, and sponsors, including our Subscribing Member organizations. I’d like to especially acknowledge outgoing Board Members Janiele Maffei, Nick Gregor, and Zahraa Saiyed and outgoing LFE co-chairs Mike Mieler and Eduardo Miranda for their service to EERI. It is because of the support and commitment of so many that EERI and its membership continue to strengthen our community and our shared mission to promote earthquake resilience worldwide.
Heidi Tremayne
Executive Director
