Post Bachelor

The position involves data collection, analysis, and documentation of windstorm and coastal hazards and
impacts to the built environment. It will support five projects at NIST: the Design for Extreme Winds and
Tornadoes project in the Structural Performance under Multihazards Program, the Critical Buildings and
Infrastructure Projects within the Hurricane Maria Program, and the NWIRP study of Hurricane Ian. The
work of all projects includes but is not limited to: literature reviews, development and maintenance of
windstorm hazard and impact databases; geospatial analyses; production of maps and web‐based
geodatabases; writing reports and journal manuscripts; support for NIST‐organized meetings, workshops
and conferences; and participation in and presentation of research results at professional and scientific meetings and conferences, and participation in standards committees. The position also requires real-
time operational support in delivery of FEMA Mission Assignments to develop maps of windspeeds within 24 hours of hurricane landfalls in the US.
Key focus areas for the tornado research include tornado hazard characterization, tornado damage to
critical facilities (e.g., schools, fire and police stations, hospitals), tornado damage to warehouses, support
for tornado standard and code development and adoption, and communications of tornado risk. This
project also supports development of the new ASCE/AMS Standard on Wind Speed Estimation in
Tornadoes and Other Windstorms. The main research topics for the Hurricane Maria projects are 1) study
of the performance of shelters and hospitals and 2) study of the storm impacts on communication
systems, particularly wireless communications. The performance of critical buildings study will be
conducted through analysis of consulting reports, poststorm damage reports, aerial and ground photos,
and other data sources. The communications project includes analysis of pre‐ and poststorm aerial and
satellite imagery and lidar data to assess damage and collapse of towers and associated communications
equipment, integration of results with FCC tower database, cell‐site outage records, estimated wind
speeds from Hurricane Maria, and reporting of project results. The primary elements of the Hurricane Ian
study include: data collection and GIS analysis to map out areas that flooded during Hurricane Ian;
collection and analysis of wind and rainwater damage to buildings in areas that did not flood; and
development of machine learning methods for aerial imagery analysis.