About
Marco Baiguera is a Lecturer in Structural Engineering in the Department of Civil, Maritime and Environmental Engineering at the University of Southampton. He is currently Chair of the Society for Earhquake Civil Engineering & Dynamics (SECED) Young Members subcommittee.
Research
Current research
Marco’s main research focus is the development of new engineering tools for estimating the impact of natural hazards on the built environment. His work aims to generate methods that integrate the design and assessment of buildings for multiple hazards, such as earthquake, tsunami and sequential earthquake-tsunami loadings, with emphasis on critical structures in developed and developing countries. Recent research projects led to the establishment of analytical tools for design of buildings to tsunami loading and tsunami risk assessment of education and healthcare facilities through field survey activities.
Publications
Supervision
Teaching
My teaching approach aims to develop the students’ ability in breaking down complex engineering problems into their simplest form. To enhance this process, I strive to develop clear, comprehensive and well-structured teaching material that students feel comfortable to interact with and learn. This is combined with extensive examples of applied structural engineering from real-case studies that provide a direct experience from the real world.
External roles and responsibilities
Biography
Before joining the University of Southampton he was a Research Fellow in Earthquake and Tsunami Engineering at University College London (2018-2021), where he worked as a member of the EPICentre research group. He has contributed to the development of innovative tools for the design and assessment of buildings to tsunami. These include a nonlinear static procedure for the design of buildings to tsunami, which will be referenced in the commentary to the new edition of ASCE 7-22 tsunami design guidelines. He has worked closely with other researchers at UCL and research partners in UK (Willis Research Network) and across the world (e.g. University of Hawaii; Catholic Pontifical University of Chile, Sri Lanka Moratuwa University). He has built and maintained links with World Bank and NGOs and other non-academic institutions (SECED and EEFIT).
He obtained his PhD in Civil Engineering at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh (2017). In his PhD studies, he developed an innovative design strategy to minimise earthquake damage in steel buildings through the use of bespoke sacrificial elements (i.e. stainless steel dampers). He investigated the benefits of structures equipped with such dampers not just for earthquake protection but also in a progressive collapse scenario. For its novelty, he was invited by IStructE to inspire young professionals on the need for resilient design strategies.
Prizes
- Best Steel Structures Paper Award at 8th International Conference on Steel and Aluminium Structures (2016)
- Best Poster Award at 18th Young Researchers’ Conference, UK Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE), London. (2016)