DR. VESNA TERZIC

Dr. Vesna Terzic is a Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering and Construction Engineering Management at CSULB. She received her B.S. in Structural Engineering from the University of Belgrade in Belgrade, Serbia; her M.S. in Earthquake Engineering from Saints Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Macedonia; and her Ph.D. in Structural Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, where she received the Popert Fellowship in recognition of her “hard work, excellence, and promise.” Upon completion of graduate school, she worked for four years as a researcher and a lecturer at Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER) Center at UC Berkeley. She is a recipient of a ACI Chester Paul Siess Award for Excellence in Structural Research.

Dr. Terzic’s expertise includes the development of advanced models and tools for seismic performance assessment and resilience evaluation of civil infrastructure, evaluation of the nonlinear dynamic behavior of structures and their protective systems, and probabilistic performance-based seismic design and evaluation of buildings and bridges. She has been the principal investigator on research projects supported by the National Science Foundation, PEER Center, and Mineta Transportation Institute. She was a member of the OpenSees development team, a lead analyst of the FEMA-P58-2 performance products team, and a member of the FEMA 138 project management committee.

Selected Awards

  • Popert Fellowship, in recognition of hard work, excellence, and promise, awarded by Civil Engineering Department at UC Berkeley (2009)
  • ACI Chester Paul Siess Award for Excellence in Structural Research for the paper, “Evaluation of Post-Earthquake Axial Load Capacity of Circular Bridge Columns,” published in ACI in 2015 (2017)

Education

  • Ph.D., UC Berkeley, Structural Engineering (2009)
  • M.S., University Ss. Cyril and Methodius, Macedonia, Earthquake Engineering (2005)
  • B.S., University of Belgrade, Serbia, Structural Engineering (2003)

Appointments

  • Professor, CSULB (2014 - present)
  • Project Scientist, Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center, UC Berkeley (2014)
  • Postdoctoral Researcher, Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center, UC Berkeley (2010 - 2013)
  • Adjunct Professor, Santa Clara University, California (2011)

Teaching

  • Engineering Mechanics: Statics, CSULB
  • Reinforced Concrete Design, CSULB and Santa Clara University
  • Structures Lab, CSULB
  • Advanced Reinforced Concrete Structures, CSULB
  • Advanced Structural Analysis, CSULB
  • Dynamics of Structures, CSULB
  • Performance-Based Earthquake Engineering, UC Berkeley