Director

Director

Dr. Gaby Ou

Education

  • Ph.D., Lyles School of Civil Engineering, Purdue University, 2010-2016
    • Dissertation: Robust Real-Time Hybrid Simulation Techniques Incorporating Model Updating
    • Advisor: Prof. Shirley J. Dyke
  • B.E., Civil Engineering, The University of Sydney, 2005-2010
  • B.S., Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Harbin Institute of Technology, 2005-2010

Professional Experience

  • Assistant Professor, University of Florida, 2022-;
  • Assistant Professor, University of Utah, 2016-2022;
  • Research Assistant, Purdue University, 2010-2016;
  • Research Assistant, University of Western Sydney, Australia, 2010;
  • Research Assistant, University of Western Australia, Australia, 2008-2009;

Professional Society Memberships

  • American Society of Civil Engineering
  • Engineering Mechanics Institute
  • Committee member on Structure Control and Health Monitoring
  • Member of Multihazard Engineering Collaboratory On Hybrid Simulation (MECHS)
  • Co-director of multi-disciplinary weather, infrastructure, and grid initiative WeatherG

My Story

I had the unique opportunity to meet Professor Bill Iwan at the 2008 International Conference on Vibration Engineering that was held in Dalian, China. At that time, he was an emeritus professor of civil engineering at the California Institute of Technology, and I was a sophomore student, barely in my twenties. He gave the keynote presentation at the conference, and I was struck by some of the questions he raised, including: “Are there any relationships between buildings in a seismic event?” “Can we leverage such an underline relationship to improve the building resilience creatively?” He did not provide answers to these questions, and I did not realize the inspiration and impact that his presentation would have on me until many years later: his words continue to echo in my mind and lead me in the direction of my research today.

I completed my doctoral training at Purdue University, where I had the opportunity to work on an advanced computational-experimental method known as the (Real-Time) Hybrid Simulation. Hybrid simulation enables the dynamic response evaluation of a structural system, with simultaneous interactions between simulated and experimental testing. Critical components are experimentally tested, while the remainder of the system under investigation is numerically modeled with boundary conditions between the two, implemented by the use of hydraulic actuators. I had the opportunity to develop and apply an H-infinity-based controller with a Kalman Filter-integrated, robust control algorithm, and a Runge-Kutta-based numerical integration algorithm to impose accurate boundary conditions. Later, I applied the robust hybrid simulation testing technique to evaluate offshore wind turbine vibration control and fault tolerance of a wireless structural control system.

I started as an assistant professor after graduating from my Ph.D. program. My passion and interest in research are driven by understanding the regional performance of infrastructure and infrastructure systems during the occurrence of natural hazards. My vision for the future of structural engineering is that structural analysis, modeling, and testing has the potential to be linked to the estimation and prediction of the response of infrastructure and infrastructure systems to benefit decision-making. According to my expertise in dynamic structural performance simulations, I chose the specific area of modeling infrastructure dynamic response, damage, and failure during hurricanes and earthquakes to enable hazard-oriented decision-making, such as pre-hazard planning, emergency response, resource allocation, and post-hazard restoration and recovery.