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Paolo Bocchini

I am an Assistant Professor of Structural Engineering at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of Lehigh University. Before joining Lehigh's Faculty I was a Research Associate at the Advanced Technology for Large Structural Systems (ATLSS) Engineering Research Center. Previously, I held a Research Grant at the University of Bologna, from which I received my Ph.D. in Structural Mechanics and my Laurea degree (B.Sc. + M.Sc.) in Civil Engineering. Most of my Ph.D. dissertation was developed at Columbia University, where I was a Visiting Scholar. During my program in Civil Engineering, I was a member of the Collegio Superiore Alma Mater Studiorum.

Main Research Interests

My entire research activity is somehow related to the use of probabilistic and statistical concepts and tools in civil engineering problems. In all my works I paid attention to the possible practical applications, and I put particular emphasis on the theoretical and numerical aspects.

Most of my current research deals with civil infrastructure networks (bridge networks in particular) and consists in the application of my background in reliability and random fields to these complex systems. I have developed computational techniques for the assessment of the time-dependent network reliability, for the optimization of the network management all along its life-cycle, for the resilience- and cost-based optimal allocation of resources for the recovery of a network after the occurrence of an extreme event.

Some side projects related to my past research topics involve simulation of non-Gaussian random fields in mechanics problems; structural identification and damage detection in truss structures and in pipelines for oil and gas; numerical tools for non destructive testing by means of guided ultrasonic waves; stochastic finite element methods; advanced rheological models and pre- post-processing tools for ceramic materials. A complete list of my publications is available here.