Pegah Farshadmanesh

Education

• Illinois Institute of Technology (Illinois Tech), Ph.D., Civil Engineering, 2017

Biography

Dr. Pegah Farshadmanesh is currently a Research Scientist in the Socio-Technical Risk Analysis (SoTeRiA) Research Laboratory in the Department of Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Farshadmanesh conducts and leads interdisciplinary research that crosses boundaries between various engineering disciplines (e.g., civil, nuclear, and systems engineering) and data science, supported by different organizations, including National Science Foundation (NSF) for incorporating data analytic techniques into PRA, and Department of Energy (DOE) for integrating safety risk and financial risk supporting Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) of complex technological systems. Since 2019, Pegah has served as an Associate Editor of the Practice Periodical on Structural Design and Construction ASCE Journal. Dr. Farshadmanesh’s professional desire is to improve the safety and reliability of complex technological systems, including nuclear power plants, to withstand natural and technological hazards and develop technologies to mitigate the impact of hazards on the public and the environment. Pegah’s primary research interests include:

1. Leveraging probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) and risk-informed methodologies to assess the impacts of single and multi-hazard events, such as tornadoes, earthquakes and subsequent fires,

2. Evaluating the impact of social factors (e.g., human and organizational factors) on the performance of systems and structures during natural hazards,

3. Integrating advanced machine learning techniques (e.g., text mining) to discover underlying causal factors for improving response and recovery,

4. Supporting risk-informed decision-making under uncertainty

Pegah received her Ph.D. in Civil Engineering in May 2017 from the Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology (Illinois Tech) and joined SoTeRiA in October 2017 as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. Prior to pursuing her Ph.D., Pegah was a structural engineer for nine years, working on numerous diverse projects including the design of hydraulic structures, such as water treatment facilities. As part of her Ph.D. research focusing on quantifying the risk of fires caused by earthquakes, Dr. Farshadmanesh developed an innovative post-earthquake fire risk model that considers the underlying causal factors of ignitions, including human factors, to estimate the increased likelihood of fire in residential buildings across a region after an earthquake. Dr. Farshadmanesh is the recipient of the 2019 Zonta International Women in Technology District award, the recipient of the 2019 outstanding reviewers award of the Practice Periodical on Structural Design and Construction ASCE Journal, was selected as a participant for the 2019 Rising Stars Women in Engineering Workshop in South Korea, and the recipient of the 2020 Mary Fran Myers Scholarship for her contribution to disaster research.

Academic Positions

• Research Scientist, Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2020 - Present
• Research Associate, Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2018 - 2020
• Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2017 - 2018

Research Interests

• Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA)
• Modeling of Multi-hazards (e.g., fire following earthquake) and Societal Impacts
• Seismic Probabilistic Risk Assessment (SPRA)
• Fire Risk
• Structural Reliability Modeling
• Risk-informed Decision-making
• Hydraulic Structures
• Data Analytics
• Uncertainty Quantification

Books Authored or Co-Authored (Original Editions)

• Elhami-Khorasani, N., N. Braxtan., A. Carlton, M. Coar, J. Dalton, P. Farshadmanesh, P. Kamath, M. Ketabdar, K. LaMalva, and M. Memari. (2022). "Evaluation Framework for Post-Earthquake Fire Assessment of Buildings." American Society of Civil Engineers/Structural Engineering Institute.

Selected Articles in Journals

• Pence, J., P. Farshadmanesh, J. Kim, C. Blake, and Z. Mohaghegh. (2020). "Data-Theoretic Approach for Socio-Technical Risk Analysis: Text Mining Licensee Event Reports of U.S. Nuclear Power Plants." Safety Science Journal, 124.
• Schumock, G., S. Zhang, P. Farshadmanesh, J. Gardner Owens, N. Kasza, J. Stearns, T. Sakurahara, and Z. Mohaghegh. (2020). "Integrated Risk-Informed Design (I-RID) Methodological framework and Computational Application for FLEX Equipment Storage Buildings of Nuclear Power Plants." Progress in Nuclear Energy, 120.
• Cheng, W.C., T. Sakurahara, S. Zhang, P. Farshadmanesh, S. Reihani, E. Kee, Z. Mohaghegh, K. Heckmann, J. Sievers, B. Lydell, C. Zammali, X.-X. Yuan, X. Duan, R. Alzbutas, G.-G. Lee, J.A. Karim, V. Morozov, C. Takasugi, T. Jevremovic. (2020). "Review and Categorization of Existing Studies on the Estimation of Probabilistic Failure Metrics for Reactor Coolant Pressure Boundary Piping and Steam Generator Tubes in Nuclear Power Plants." Progress in Nuclear Energy, 118.
• Farshadmanesh, P., and J. Mohammadi. (2019). "A Probabilistic Methodology for Assessing Post- Earthquake Fire Ignition Vulnerability in Residential Buildings." Fire Technology Journal, 55(4), 1295–1318.
• Farshadmanesh, P., T. Sakurahara, S. Reihani, E. Kee, and Z. Mohaghegh. (2018). "SHAKE-RoverD Framework for Nuclear Power Plants: The Streamlined Approach for Seismic Risk Assessment." Nuclear Technology, 205(3), 442–463.
• Farshadmanesh, P., J. Mohammadi, and M. Modares. (2016). "Further Development in Predicting Post-Earthquake Fire Ignition Hazard." International Journal of Civil, Environmental, Structural, Construction and Architectural Engineering, 10(6), 681–685.
• Goudarzi, M., and P. Farshadmanesh. (2015). "Numerical Evaluation of Hydrodynamic Damping Due to the Upper Mounted Baffles in Real Scale Tanks." Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, 77, 290–298.
• Soroushian, A., P. Farshadmanesh, and S. Azad. (2015). "On the Essentiality of Techniques to Enlarge Integration Steps in Transient Analysis against Digitized Excitations." Journal of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering, 17(1), 43–60.
• Hosseini, M., H. Vosoughifar, and P. Farshadmanesh. (2013). "Simplified Dynamic Analysis of Sloshing in Rectangular Tanks with Multiple Vertical Baffles." Journal of Water Sciences Research, 5(1), 19–30.

Articles in Conference Proceedings

• Roy, A., P. Farshadmanesh, T. Sakurahara, E. Kee, and Z. Mohaghegh. (2021). "Managing Unexpected Failures of Nuclear Power Plants by Incorporating Organizational Factors into Probabilistic Risk Assessment." Proceedings of the Biennial International Conference on Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Analysis.
• Yang, J., P. Farshadmanesh, T. Sakurahara, J. Pence, S. Reihani, C. Blake, and Z. Mohaghegh. (2020). "Equipping Machine Learning with Uncertainty Quantification to Update Probabilistic Risk Assessment of Nuclear Power Plants using NRC Licensee Event Reports." American Nuclear Society Winter Meeting & Expo. Chicago, IL.
• Farshadmanesh, P., T. Sakurahara, S. Reihani, E. Kee, and Z. Mohaghegh. (2020). "Risk-Informed Analysis of Nuclear Power Plant FLEX Storage Building." The 30th European Safety and Reliability Conference, The 15th Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management Conference (ESREL 2020 PSAM 15). Venice, Italy.
• Beal, J., T. Sakurahara, J. Pence, P. Farshadmanesh, E. Kee, and Z. Mohaghegh. (2019). "Coupling Degradation and Maintenance to Model Safety Risk and Financial Risk Under an Integrated Enterprise Risk Management for Nuclear Power Plants." 2019 Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology (SMiRT) Conference. Charlotte, NC.
• Hosseini, M., A. Boorboor, and P. Farshadmanesh. (2014). "Analysis of Water Distribution Buried Jointed Pipe Networks Subjected to Seismic Waves Considering the Nonlinear Behavior of Connections." Pipelines 2014: From Underground to the Forefront of Innovation and Sustainability. ASCE. Portland, OR.
• Hosseini, M., and P. Farshadmanesh. (2013). "Evaluating the Effect of Multiple Vertical Orthogonal Baffles on Sloshing Phenomenon in Rectangular Tanks Subjected to 3-Dimensional Earthquake Excitations." Proceedings of the Thirteenth East Asia-Pacific Conference on Structural Engineering and Construction (EASEC-13). Sapporo, Japan.
• Hosseini, M., S. Shadravan, and P. Farshadmanesh. (2013). "A Simple Procedure for Evaluation of Baffles Arrangement Effects on Sloshing Phenomenon in Rectangular Tanks Subjected to 3-Dimensional Earthquake Excitations Using FVM-ANN Technique." International Conference on Earthquake Engineering (SE-50EEE). Skopje, Macedonia.
• Vosoughifar, H.R., S.K. Sadat Shokouhi, and P. Farshadmanesh. (2012). "Optimal Sensor Placement of Steel Structure with UBF System for SHM Using Hybrid FEM-GA Technique." Civil Structural Health Monitoring Workshop (CSHM-4). Berlin, Germany.
• Hosseini, M., and P. Farshadmanesh. (2011). "The Effects of Multiple Vertical Baffles on Sloshing Phenomenon in Rectangular Tanks." 8th International Conference on Earthquake Resistant Engineering Structures (ERES). Chianciano Terme, Italy.
• Hosseini, M., and P. Farshadmanesh. (2011). "Simplified Dynamic analysis of Sloshing Phenomenon in Tanks with Multiple Baffles Subjected to Earthquake." III ECCOMAS Thematic Conference on Computational Methods in Structural Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering (COMPDYN). Corfu, Greece.

Reports

• Z. Mohaghegh, T. Sakurahara, J. Beal, W.-C. Cheng, P. Farshadmanesh, S. Reihani, E. Kee, A. Rowell, and F. Yilmaz, "Systematic Enterprise Risk Management by Integrating the RISMC Toolkit and Cost-Benefit Analysis," Final Report for Nuclear Energy University Programs (NEUP) Project 17-12614, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2021.

Journal Editorships

• Associate Editor, Practice Periodical on Structural Design and Construction, ASCE

Honors

• Mary Fran Myers Scholarship, Natural Hazards Center, Colorado (2020)
• Outstanding Reviewer Award, ASCE Practice Periodical on Structural Design and Construction (2019)
• Zonta International Women in Technology District Scholarship Award (2019)
• The Asian Deans’ Forum 2019 – The Rising Stars Women in Engineering Workshop Travel Award, Seoul National University, South Korea (2019)
• STEM Faculty Launch Program Travel Award, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA (2019)