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Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering

CCEE’s Dr. Ashly Cabas named Faculty Fellow of the NC State Center of Geospatial Analytics

July 22, 2022

Cabas and her graduate students evaluate the patterns in earthquake-induced ground deformation near the Avon river in New Zealand after the 2011 Christchurch earthquake to inform the incorporation of geomorphic features into the next generation of lateral spreading predictive models.

CCEE assistant professor Dr. Ashly Cabas was invited to become a Faculty Fellow of the NC State Center of Geospatial Analytics. The center works with researchers, policy experts and industry leaders to apply geospatial analytics to advance innovative solutions to grand societal challenges and is home to more than 40 researchers and educators who span seven of NC State’s colleges and more than a dozen of its academic departments. 

“Looking forward to learning from and collaborating with other fellows at the Center!” Cabas tweeted.

Cabas uses geospatial analytics to characterize earthquake ground motions and the effects of the spatial variability of sedimentary deposits on the intensity of ground shaking and deformation. More specifically, her research team develops predictive models of liquefaction-induced large ground deformations (i.e., lateral spreading) that incorporate relevant large-scale geomorphological controls, and conducts regional seismic hazard assessments that capture systematic contributions from known geologic structures. Other interests include the spatial variability of the effects of local soil conditions on ground shaking at large-scales, and geostatistical modeling of ground motion data to probabilistically characterize seismic hazards that account for site-specific information when available.

Cabas will be part of two of the center’s research areas: “Mapping a Dynamic Planet” using data from state-of-the-art sensors on near-surface, underwater, airborne and satellite platforms to map and monitor the planet from local to global scales; and “Forecasting Landscape and Environmental Change” by developing models to simulate patterns of landscape and environmental change and helping decision-makers explore what may happen in the future under different scenarios. 

Other Faculty Fellows from the CCEE Department include professors Drs. Sankar Arumugam and Emily Berglund and associate professor Dr. Dan Obenour.