Seismic Hazards Expert From California to Speak at UK

Seismic Hazards Expert From California
to Speak at UK

Campbell's major research area, for which he is known internationally, is the development of attenuation relationships used to estimate strong ground motion. Major projects for the insurance and financial industries in which Campbell has participated and developed seismic hazard and ground-motion models include the California Earthquake Authority and residential earthquake insurance programs for Taiwan and Turkey.

July 25, 2002 (Lexington, Ky.) -- Kenneth W. Campbell, vice president of a consulting group in Oakland, Calif., will present a seminar on seismic hazards and risk in Southern California at 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 8, in 102 Mining and Mineral Resources Building on Rose Street at the University of Kentucky. The seminar is co-sponsored by the Kentucky Geological Survey and the UK Department of Geological Sciences.

The title of Campbell's speech is "Variability in Magnitude-frequency Relationships in Southern California from Uncertainty in Seismic Hazard Source Models: Implications for Damage Estimation."

Campbell has more than 30 years of professional experience with technical management, engineering, consulting and research in the areas of engineering seismology, strong ground motion, seismic hazards evaluation and geotechnical earthquake engineering.
He worked seven years as a research engineer with the U.S. Geological Survey's National Hazards Mapping Program. As vice president of ABS Consulting's EQECAT group in Oakland, Calif., Campbell is responsible for developing seismic hazard models and seismic input used in EQECAT's risk-assessment software, portfolio loss studies and risk analyses for the insurance and financial industries.

An international expert in strong ground motion estimation and seismic hazard assessment, he also provides in-house consulting to the risk consulting and engineering divisions of ABS Consulting. Campbell has provided expert testimony on seismic hazard issues at nuclear and insurance hearings and has served as an expert on several ground-motion panels, most notably for the Yucca Mountain High-Level Nuclear Waste Repository Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis Project and the U.S. Department of Energy Senior Seismic Hazard Analysis Committee.

He has served as a board member of the Seismological Society of America, as vice chairman of the ASCE Technical Council on Lifeline Earthquake Engineering Seismic Risk Committee, and as a member of the Earth Science Advisory Board for the DOE Savannah River Plant. He is on the editorial board of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America and is a research professor with the Civil Engineering Department of Portland State University.

Campbell has written more than 120 publications, many published in international journals. His experience in seismic hazards evaluation includes specifying ground-shaking and geotechnical hazards for offshore platforms, onshore oil facilities, industrial and commercial facilities, nuclear power plants, nuclear waste repositories, DOE facilities, pipelines, landfills, lifelines, bridges, high-rise buildings, and many other important facilities.