About
Nancy Ingabire Abayo serves as Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at Lafayette College, specializing in interdisciplinary geohazard research that integrates geology, earthquake engineering, seismology, and granular physics to enhance infrastructure resilience against natural disasters. She teaches CE 361 (Introduction to Geotechnical Engineering) with a focus on community-centered design and accessible pedagogy.
Her research targets liquefaction-induced lateral spreading—where saturated soils behave like liquids during earthquakes—addressing high variability in predictive models that threaten roadways and buildings. Motivated by childhood flood experiences, she investigates consequences of earthquakes, floods, and limnic eruptions to improve hazard mitigation techniques through cross-disciplinary collaboration.
Dr. Abayo emphasizes holistic education through empathetic teaching strategies that accommodate diverse learning styles while encouraging students to incorporate community needs into engineering solutions. Outside academia, she enjoys spontaneous singing, laminating objects, and mirror-writing.
