Find us on Linkedin for our lab's current activities!
Community-centric design of smart amphibious residential buildings for strengthening flood resilience and the SUD recovery ecosystem in the Appalachian region
Principal investigator: Mariantonieta Gutierrez Soto
Co-principal investigators:
Kristina Brant, Assistant professor of rural sociology
Lisa Iulo, Professor of Architecture
Zhen Lei, Professor of energy and environmental economics
Daniel Whisler, Associate professor of engineering design
Shirley E. Clark, Professor of environmental engineering
James Mutunga, Assistant professor of biology
Truong Tran, Assistant professor of computer science
Community partners:
Natasha Stout, Assistant director, Religious Coalition for Community Renewal (RCCR)
Kevin Jones, Executive director RCCR
Nicole Intagliata, Vice president of programs, Fahe
Angela Stephens, Partnerships and programs manager, Fahe
Industry partner:
John Thompson, Chuck Consulting LLC
University of Stavanger, Norway, hosted the international congress and contest aiming to disseminate and evaluate the recent advances in topics of engineering science as well as modern research topics in the 21st century, structural health monitoring, smart structures, smart cities, and sustainability.
Our paper was awarded the Olympic Medal for best contribution!
DREAM Seminar Series
Dr. Gutierrez Soto hosted two professors during the DREAM structures lab as part of the DREAM Seminar Series.
Defense: Kareem Hanna
Congratulations to our DREAM structures lab team member for defending his undergraduate thesis titled: "Experimental Bending Analysis of Additively Manufactured Lattice Beams using Digital Image Correlation"
#WeAre
Workshop: Designing the Future of Recovery
We went to Charleston, WV to establish interdisciplinary partnerships between community organizations, individuals with lived experience, academic experts, and stakeholders interested in exploring innovative designs for recovery housing in West Virginia. By building a shared understanding of the needs and opportunities within the SUD recovery ecosystem, we aim to develop innovative, community-centric transitional housing solutions that integrate community engagement, sustainable development practices, and climate and disaster resilience solutions that not only meet recovery needs but are adaptable to the region’s environmental challenges. The workshop will seek to identify potential funding opportunities to support future collaboration and the expansion of recovery housing solutions in the state and in the rural Appalachian region.
More details about our workshop can be found here: https://recoveryhousing.psu.edu/
Grant: Climate Consortium
Co-Designing Hazard-Resistant, Climate-Smart Tiny Home Community for a Sustainable Recovery Ecosystem in Rural Appalachia
This project seeks to address the gap in rural Appalachia’s local recovery ecosystems by developing the DREAM: Design of a Resilient (e.g., hazard-resistant and climate-just), Economical (e.g., affordable and sustainable), Appropriate (e.g., considering culture, policy, & safety), and Multidimensional (e.g., the entrepreneurial mindset around workforce reentry education, skills, and job training) housing program. The project will create transitional housing that is hazard-resistant, affordable, culturally appropriate, and integrated with workforce development. The anticipated impact includes enhanced stability and disaster preparedness, reduced housing vulnerability, and better support for individuals in recovery from SUD. By improving housing options and integrating workforce reentry education, the project aims to support sustained recovery and strengthen community resilience. Furthermore, the educational experience of engineering and social science students working in teams as part of the proposed capstone project would be game changing.
2025 Learning Factory Showcase
Design of Resilient, Economical, Affordable and Multidimensional (DREAM) Housing Solutions in Rural Appalachia
The objective of this project is to design and test hurricane-resilient, 3D-printed tiny homes and develop a supportive community model to improve disaster recovery and transitional housing efforts in Charleston, West Virginia.
Real Estate Preservation : Improved Mobile Home Anchor Design
The objective of this project is to create a mobile-home anchor for usage during hurricane-style high winds to prevent home rollover and uprooting.
We gathered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada to discover latest advances in smart structures and non-destructive evaluation through the nine conferences. At this event, SPIE fellows and plenary talks engaged an international audience. EAP demonstrations had incredible showcase of robotics, haptics, and so much more.
One of the conferences was organized by our very own, Dr. Mariantonieta Gutierrez Soto, serving as Chair of the Multifunctional Materials and Structures conference. This conference had keynote speakers such as Dr. Umesh Gandhi, Toyota Corporation, Prof. Ann C. Sychterz, Univ. of Illinois Champaign, and Prof. Taylor Greenwood, Penn State University. It also hosted a panel in coordination with the Biologically Inspired Materials, Processes, and Systems (BIMPS).
P.S. Did you know that the Wall where the convention took place has a tuned mass damper to mitigate vibrations? Learn more here.
2024 Ph.D. Dissertation Defense & Graduation: Saanchi Kaushal
2024 SHPE convention and Faculty Development Symposium
2024 Hurricane Helene
Webb, B., D. Prevatt, T. Kijewski-Correa, M. Amini, R. Ramponi, T. Tomiczek, S. Pilkington, H. Pham, K. Mostafa, D. Kalliontzis, S. Kameshwar, H. Dang, A. Kyprioti, J. Capa Salinas, S. Xu, T. Do, M. Gutierrez Soto, A. Diekmann, A. Jana, T. Lin, T. Lahna, S. Ray, M. Alam, D. Roueche, K. Wolohan (2024). "StEER: Hurricane Helene Preliminary Virtual Reconnaissance Report (PVRR)", in StEER - Hurricane Helene. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-rgnq-e383
Kyprioti, A., J. Yuzbasi, H. Dang, A. Jana, S. Kameshwar, A. Diekmann, S. Garcia, P. Mohammadi, M. Gutierrez Soto, B. Webb, S. Pilkington, M. Amini, P. Alagusundaramoorthy, D. Kalliontzis, S. Parajuli, P. Pokhrel, S. Ray, T. Tomiczek, S. Xu, C. Wang, A. Gasha, M. Perotin, K. Mostafa, D. Roueche, T. Lin, T. Do, K. Ancona, K. Wolohan (2024). "StEER: Hurricane Helene Annotated Media Repository", in StEER - Hurricane Helene. DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-mxeh-7712
2024 Ph.D. Dissertation Defense and Graduation: Alejandro Palacio Betancur
18th World Conference of Earthquake Engineering
Delighted to showcase our work in Milan, Italy.
Palacio-Betancur, A., Manickmalar, D., Alwaneen, R., & Gutierrez Soto, M. (2024). Semi-active cam-lever friction device for vibration control of buildings subjected to earthquakes. The 18th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering. Milan. https://www.wcee2024.it/
Caballero-Russi, D., Slesarenko, V., & Gutierrez Soto, M. (2024). Structural Health Monitoring and Estimation of Degree of Damage in Locally Resonant Metamaterials. The 18th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering. Milan. https://www.wcee2024.it/
Biomaterials and Nature-Based Solutions: Achieving a Sustainable, Decarbonized and Climate-Resilient Built Environment Workshop
DREAM structures represented at the 2024 EMI conference
Andrew Aguila presented on his research on multiaxial real-time hybrid simulation.
Seth Roth presented his research on experimental testing of lattice structures.
It was the first time attending this conference and we all enjoyed learning from the community and sightseeing Chicago, IL
Dr. Gutierrez Soto is now Chair of the SPIE Smart Structures + NDE conference on Multifunctional Materials and Structures
Reigniting the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute student chapter at Penn State
Center for Acoustics and Vibration Poster Competition
5th MECHS Workshop: Exploring Multi-hazard and Multi-physics Hybrid Simulation
The workshop occurred on August 9-10, 2023 on the Purdue University campus in West Lafayette, Indiana.
It was directed toward researchers, students, and industry professionals interested in hybrid simulation. It was aimed to provide opportunities for fruitful collaborations between academia and industry. Furthermore, a hands-on activity for attendees new to the field was carried out on August 8.
The participants had the opportunity to learn about RTHS principles and design and test their controllers for a nonlinear benchmark control problem.
Conference
Engineering Mechanics Institute
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD | May 31-June 3, 2022
Research presentation
Congratulations to Alejandro Palacio Betancur on presenting his research for improving the time delay in the real-time hybrid simulation of civil structures.
His presentation is titled: "Investigation of Self-Tuning Regulator Controllers for Real-Time Hybrid Simulation of Civil Engineering Structures."
Check out more information at the online 2022 conference program.
Research presentation
Congratulations to David Caballero Russi on presenting our work in instrumenting the West 2 Building currently under construction.
Our collaborative project with Alejandro Palacio Betancur is titled: "Comparative Study of Optimal Sensor Placement Methods for Structural Health Monitoring of a Hybrid CLT-Steel Building."
Check out more information at the online 2022 conference program.
Research presentation
Congratulations to Saanchi Kaushal on presenting our efforts in automating the damage assessment following a hurricane event.
Our collaborative project with Prof. Rebecca Napolitano is titled: "Identifying Building Attributes that Influence Hurricane Damage by Using Dimensionality Reduction Techniques."
Check out more information at the online 2022 conference program.
Graduation
Doctoral Commencement
University of Kentucky | May 2022
Congratulations to Dr. Sajad Javadinasab Hormozabad on your graduation day with a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering.
His Dissertation titled: "Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing in Smart Structural Systems"
Award
Research Seed Grant
Living Multifunctional Materials Collaborative Program
Our international collaborative project "Multi-Agent Friction-Driven Reconfigurable Adaptive Structures" with Dr. Viacheslav Slesarenko received a grant from the joined Convergence Center of Living Multifunctional Material Systems and Living, Adaptive and Energy-autonomous Materials Systems.
We look forward to seeing the inventions with the group, including our graduate researcher Alejandro Palacio Betancur from the DREAM structures lab.
Field reconnaissance
Tornado Outbreak
21-22 March 2022 | Arabi, LA
Prof. Gutierrez Soto along with the DREAM structures lab members Alejandro Palacio Betancur and Garrett Demaree deployed to the site of the disaster to gather data. We joined the FAST Team of the StEER network for this field reconnaissance mission near New Orleans, LA.
Our field assessment report and data are available at Designsafe
Award
Idea Incubator Winner
Adaptive Architecture Idea Incubator Competition Program
Our international collaborative project "Hiding from Earthquakes with an Adaptive Metabarrier" with Dr. Viacheslav Slesarenko won the Adaptive Architecture Idea Incubator Competition organized by Convergence Center of Living Multifunctional Material Systems and Living, Adaptive and Energy-autonomous Materials Systems.
We look forward to seeing the inventions with the group, including our graduate researcher David Caballero Russi from the DREAM structures lab.
Award
NSF Grant
Follow up on the 10 December 2021 Midwest Tornado Outbreak | Mayfield, KY
PI Napolitano, Co-PIs Gutierrez Soto and Boothby received NSF Award.
Garrett Demaree, Alejandro Palacio Betancur, and David Caballero Russi, members of the DREAM structures group, deployed to the site of the disaster to gather meaningful data on historic buildings using drones, streetview cameras, and laser scans.
Our field assessment report and data is available at Designsafe
Field reconnaissance
Midwest Tornado Outbreak
10 December 2021
Prof. Gutierrez Soto along with the DREAM structures group and the BEAM lab led by Prof. Napolitano deployed to the site of the disaster to gather data. We joined the FAST Team of the StEER network for this field reconnaissance mission.
Check out the news article released by Penn state
Our field assessment report and data is available at Designsafe
Invited talk
Seton Hill University
Prof. Gutierrez Soto was hosted by Prof. Abigail Bogdan and gave a talk on the ongoing research at the DREAM structures group
Check out our conference paper that was accepted at the CCS '21: Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (Acceptance rate: 18%)
November 2021 Pages 1320–1337 https://doi.org/10.1145/3460120.3485386
This paper is a results of an international collaboration that aims to improve the cybersecurity resilience of smart buildings and bridges. Wonderful team of researchers!
Research presentation
Sendai, Japan | September 27 to October 2, 2021
[P02E09] Optimal Conditions for Response Control
Congratulations to Sajad Javadinasab Hormozabad on presenting his research for improving the design process of controlled rocking steel braced frames.
His presentation #ID:2g-0283 is titled: "Seismic Design Optimization of Controlled Rocking Steel Braced Frames based on Neural Dynamic Model"
Check out more information at the online conference program.
Research presentation
Sendai, Japan | September 27 to October 2, 2021
[P02E09] Optimal Conditions for Response Control
Congratulations to Alejandro Palacio Bentancur on presenting his research for studying a neural dynamic optimization method for vibration control of diagrid building structures subjected to seismic loading.
His presentation ID:2g-0278 is titled: "STRUCTURAL DESIGN OPTIMIZATION FOR VIBRATION CONTROL OF DIAGRID STRUCTURES USING A NEURAL DYNAMIC MODEL"
Check out more information at the online conference program.
Research presentation
Sendai, Japan | September 27 to October 2, 2021
[P01E05] Analysis
Congratulations to Alejandro Palacio-Bentacur on presenting his research proposing a new soft computing model for structural design optimization of diagrid buildings.
His presentation ID:2b-0167 is titled: "HYBRID COUNTER PROPAGATION NEURAL DYNAMIC MODEL FOR STRUCTURAL DESIGN OPTIMIZATION OF DIAGRID STRUCTURES"
Check out more information at the online conference program.
Penn State
Building DREAMs: Smart structures expert joins Engineering Design
Dr. Gutierrez Soto has joined the Penn State family! Check out the news article released by Penn State here.
UK College of Education
2020 A Teacher Who Made a Difference
Henry Adams once observed that a teacher affects eternity because you can never tell where a teacher's influence stops. Your impact goes on and on. The people you've helped and taught pass those lessons along.
I am honored and humbled to receive "A Teacher Who Made a Difference" award by the University of Kentucky, College of Education. The last three years have been a great learning experience, and I thank all my students (pictured or not due to COVID-19) for inspiring me to do better each day.
Natural Hazard Reconnaissance
2020 Nashville Tornadoes - Field Assessment Structural Team
Dr. Mariantonieta Gutierrez Soto and Sajad Javadinasab Hormozabad rush to the site and participated in the damage reconnaissance effort.
NSF-sponsored Structural Extreme Events Reconnaissance (StEER) network deployed a Field Assessment Structural Team (FAST-1) to document the impacts of these tornadoes in the Nashville Area the week of March 9 (with primary data collection activities March 9-11). FAST-1 is led by Ricky Wood of University of Nebraska, Lincoln and will include a blend of academics and practitioners:
- Keith Cullum, Simpson Strong-Tie
- Mariant Gutierrez Soto, University of Kentucky
- Mohammad Moravej, Walker Consultants
- Stephanie Pilkington, University of North Carolina, Charlotte
- David Roueche, Auburn University
- David Prevatt, University of Florida
- Frank Lombardo, UIUC
Research presentation
2020 IMACXXXVIII Conference - Society of Experimental Mechanics
It's Not Just Modal Anymore
SPACE TECHNOLOGIES FOR HUMANITY
February 10–13, 2020 in Houston, Texas
Congratulations to Sajad Javadinasab Hormozabad on presenting his research for improving the seismic protection of bridge structures using the latest technology and innovation from artificial intelligence, neural dynamic model optimization and more.
His presentation #8543 is titled: "Optimal Replicator Dynamic Controller via Load Balancing and Neural Dynamics for Semi-Active Vibration Control of Isolated Highway Bridge Structures"
Check out more information at the online conference program.
Research presentation
2019 Engineering Mechanics Institute Conference at Caltech
Congratulations to Alejandro Palacio Betancur on presenting his poster on Real-Time Hybrid Simulation of Structures, and,
Congratulations to Alvaro Javier Florez on presenting on a Model Free Adaptive Control Method for Vibration Control of Base-isolated Structures.
Dr. Gutierrez Soto served as Chair for the MS62: Complex Dynamics and Vibration Control of Structures under Single/Multiple Hazards session.
Check out their talks at online conference program and book of abstracts.
Professional Development
2019
SimCenter at University of California - Berkeley
This summer Alejandro Palacio-Betancur and Sajad Javadinasab-Homorzabad attended a 2-day training of SimCenter, which is part of the NHERI DesignSafe-CI facilities. With support from the National Science Foundation, the SimCenter granted a travel stipend to attend!
The two-day workshop on natural hazard engineering was hosted by SimCenter, the NSF-funded center that provides next-generation computational modeling and simulation software tools for natural hazards engineering research community. The workshop was focused on introducing and working with simulation tools developed by SimCenter. The tools are developed for both educational and research purposes. The educational tools include Multiple Degrees of Freedom (MDOF), Pile Group, Earthquake versus Wind, and Braced Frame Modeling tools.
On the other hand, the research applications facilitate basic and advanced modeling, analysis and simulation of some types of natural hazards including windstorms, storm surge, tsunamis, and earthquakes. Uncertainty quantification (UQ), loss estimation, and optimization concepts play the key role in these applications. The research tools include Earthquake Engineering - Uncertainty Quantification (EE-UQ) Application, Uncertainty Quantification Finite Element (uqFEM) Application, Computational Wind Engineering - Uncertainty Quantification (CWE-UQ) Application, Performance Based Engineering (PBE) Application, and Regional Earthquake Workflow.
SimCenter is currently developing the simulation tools based on the natural hazard engineering community needs and therefore any required simulation feature can be suggested and included in the software packages. The software packages use separate tools for different parts of the workflow. OpenSees is the major tool for finite element structural analyses and other open source tools are also employed to perform uncertainty quantifications as well as damage and loss analyses. The applications are capable of simulating the impact of natural hazards on structures, lifelines, and communities. The consequential costs and losses due to a natural hazard can be estimated in both small scale (a single building) and large scale (a region including millions of buildings) problems.
More information about the SimCenter can be found here
Poster presentation
2019
UK Undergraduate Research
Congratulations to Morgan Baumann and Chistopher Wheatley for presenting their research on origami-inspired additive manufacturing of buildings during the 2019 University of Kentucky Scholars event.
More information can be found here.
Research presentation
2019 SPIE Smart Structures + Nondestructive Evaluation
Congratulations to Brandon Enbody on presenting his paper on bioreplication, and,
Congratulations to Amanda Bellamy on presenting her paper on origami-inspired facades.
Dr. Gutierrez Soto served as Chair for the Energy Harvesting session.
Check out their talks at online conference program and conference proceedings.
On the ground
Damage assessment of structural damage due to Hurricane Harvey
A group of wind engineering investigators including Prof. Gutierrez Soto surveyed and performed damage assessment of residential buildings that suffered from Hurricane Harvey in Port Aransas, TX.
Check out the online news articles:
Check out the local TV news webstory:
Magazine
The New Faces of Engineering
Dr. Gutierrez Soto was recently interviewed by the Diversity in STEAM magazine!
Check out the article online at:
2018
Engineering Mechanics Institute Conference
A group of most influential engineering investigators gather at the ASCE EMI conference each year. The 2018 annual conference took place at the MIT campus.
Check the 2018EMI conference site for more information
2018
UK Undergraduate Research
A group of most aspiring engineering innovators gather at the UK Youngs Library to present research findings each year.
Congratulations Caylee, Alex, Chris and Brandon on their poster presentations!
Department of Civil Engineering
Congratulations Class 2020
Congratulations to my graduate students on achieving this milestone as MSCE class of 2020. We learned so much from you during the discovery journey as part of the Smart Structures team. You all did it! The best is yet to come!
Amanda Melendez successfully defended her M.S. Thesis titled: "Holistic Resilience Quantification Framework of Rural Communities"
Alejandro Palacio Betancur successfully defended his M.S. Thesis titled: "Adaptive tracking controller for Real-Time Hybrid Simulation"
Congratulations to our alumni of the Smart Structures lab and recent M.S. Civil Engineering graduates:
- Amanda Bellamy
- Amanda Melendez
- Alejandro Palacio Betancur
- Prethesha Alagusundaramoorthy
