Gonzalo L. Pita, PhD
Principal Consultant and Founder
Gonzalo has experience in natural risk modeling and reduction, remote sensing, structural engineering, wind engineering, modeling of infrastructure vulnerability, and public policy analysis. His consulting projects are located in the United States, Latin-America, and the Caribbean. Gonzalo was risk modeler for the Florida Public Hurricane Loss Model, where he developed vulnerability and risk simulations. As a researcher at the Department of Civil Engineering and Systems Institute at the Johns Hopkins University (JHU), he assessed hurricane hazard, building down-times, and conducted data mining projects. He has also conducted research on model-order reduction of the equations of motion for structures with energy dampers and seismic loads. Gonzalo has also worked assessing the risk of childhood obesity in the United States at the JHU's School of Public Health. As a Senior Consultant at The World Bank in Washington DC, he developed and led several international projects including Country Disaster Risk profiles, building exposure assessments, vulnerability studies of storm shelters in the Caribbean, long term impact of windstorm activity on poverty, the impact of climate and built-environment changes on present and future risk, and conducted international training seminars. Gonzalo is currently a Lecturer at Johns Hopkins University and visiting Professor at the Universidad de Salamanca in Spain. He holds a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering (Universidad Tecnológica Nacional), M.S. (Universidad Nacional de Córdoba), Ph.D. in Hurricane Risk Simulation (Florida Institute of Technology), and Postdoctoral Fellowship in Simulations (Johns Hopkins University). He received a number of awards including a Fulbright Scholarship. Gonzalo's publications.
José Antonio Inaudi, PhD
José Antonio worked as research engineer and lecturer at U.C. Berkeley and Caltech after completing his PhD in 1993. In 1995 he was a founding partner of SIRVE, a consulting company with main offices in Chile specialized in vibration reduction technology. He participated in structural design and review of dams, large structures, bridges and retrofit of structures subject to earthquake and wind actions. Since 2000 he has worked as an independent consultant in Novix and SIRVE Argentina in economic system modeling and management, engineering projects and software production. He developed a cost and tariff model for the Panama Canal Authority, strategic planning for Lockheed Martin Argentina, computational mechanics software, fluid-structure interaction model of dams for the US Corps of Engineers, design of structures with vibration protection systems (dampers and isolators), seismic vulnerability software for the World Bank, stochastic wind modeling for vibration estimation and damper design of tall buildings for Mott MacDonald, Australia. Since 1995 he works as a professor of structural dynamics, random vibrations and quantitative decision making at the National University of Córdoba and the Aeronautical Engineering School of the Air Force. José Antonio holds a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering (National University of Córdoba), M.Sc. in Structural Dynamics and Ph.D. in Dynamical Systems and Control (both from U.C. Berkeley), and a Postdoc (U.C. Berkeley and Caltech). He's the recipient of the Ing. Enrique Butty award of the Argentine Engineering Academy, the O.H. Amman Research Fellowship in Structural Engineering from the ASCE, W. H. Popert Research Fellowship and John Wheeler and Elliot Wheeler Fellowship from the U.C. Berkeley, and is a Member of the Panamerican Academy of Engineering. José's publications.
Matías Armanini, BSc
Matías is a Synoptic Meteorologist who has done extensive applied and research work in the area of severe storms hazard and significant tornado parameter. He has worked for 12 years in the Office of Automatized Processes at the Argentine National Meteorological Service (NMS) developing applied meteorological products. He also has extensive experience in Regional Numerical Forecasting and in the operation of deterministic and probabilistic global numerical models. In this capacity, Matías has implemented and operated the program LDM and is also responsible for implementing and developing the systems of analysis, generation, and visualization of Gempak products used in the NMS. He has also done consulting work for Power Distribution companies providing meteorological information for decision making. In addition, he has seven years of consulting experience in conducting reconnaissance work of severe storm damages on the built-environment (downbursts, tornadoes, mesocyclones). He is also a consultant at the World Bank where he has conducted several international projects in the area of hurricane risk applied to Central America and the Caribbean. Matías holds a B.Sc. in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires. Matías' publications.
Soledad Cardazzo, BSc
Soledad is a Meteorologist and Computer programmer. She conducted research at the Center for Research of the Sea and Atmosphere working with regional models of high resolution and in the post-processing of numerical simulations of daily forecasts. In addition, she worked on the validation of a regional experimental forecast system and on the calibration of probabilistic precipitation forecasts of multi-model ensembles. After this, and for eleven years now, she has been working in the area of numerical forecasting at the Argentine National Meteorological Service (NMS). In this capacity Soledad works on the adaptation and operational implementation of the LDM program and Gempak for the operations of the SMN, developing and tuning a platform for analyzing, visualizing, and operating with the Gempak program outputs. Soledad has also collaborated with the colleagues from CREA in several international natural risk projects for the World Bank. Soledad likes to participate in events to raise awareness about the benefits of Meteorology for Society. She holds a B.Sc. in Atmospheric Science from the University of Buenos Aires and is currently pursuing a degree in Computer Engineering at the National University of San Martin. Sole's publications.
Marcos F. Pita, BSc, PE
Marcos is an Agricultural Engineer specialized in the study and management of soils and the production of extensive crops. He has worked in the Soils and Water Lab of the National University of Cordoba for 5 years conducting analytical and experimental Edaphological diagnostics to assess fertilization and identification of factors that may limit crop yield. In this capacity he was also part of the research projects: Diagnosis of Soils of the Province of Cordoba research project, "Adsorption and transport of nutrients and pollutants in the molisolls of Central-North Córdoba", and "Organic amendments: a technological alternative to recover, maintain and increase the productive soil capacity and the preservation of the environment" funded by the Cordoba Science Foundation. Marcos has extensive experience in crop yield assessments, linking research and applications, technical planning, diagnosis and correction of soils to fix problems that generate losses in crop growth, development, and yield and has been a consultant to more than 20 agronomic companies. He is also part of a project that is exploring the yield potential in specific geographical areas, and is currently working with colleagues at CREA in the development of probabilistic crop growth simulation framework. Marcos holds a B.Sc. in Agricultural Engineering from the National University of Cordoba, and a Graduate Diploma in Production of Extensive Crops at the same University. Marcos' Publications.
Stefanie M. Falconi, PhD
Stefanie holds a M.S. and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from The Johns Hopkins University. Her research in water resources management and drought planning was funded by the National Science Foundation (USA), the Center for a Livable Future (The Johns Hopkins University), FAEPEX International (UNICAMP), and has been published in several climate journals like Journal of Climatic Change and the Journal of Water Resources Research. She was awarded the prestigious Faculty for the Future Fellowship (Schlumberger Foundation) as a doctoral student. From the Earth Institute at Columbia University to rural communities of South Africa, Stefanie has been working on sustainability projects for 15 years. She helped teach Introduction to Sustainability at The Johns Hopkins University. Stefanie has presented her work on water management and conflict resolution at the U.S. Dept. of State, the Institute of Water Resources of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and at various institutions in Ecuador, Brazil, and India. Stefanie’s Linkedin.