Carlos Molina Hutt

Dr. Carlos Molina Hutt is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of British Columbia (UBC), specializing in Structural & Earthquake Engineering. He leads the Engineering for Seismic Resilience Laboratory (ESR Lab), focusing on assessing seismic risk in buildings and translating this knowledge into tools for engineers, planners, and policymakers. His work emphasizes societal and economic impacts of earthquake resilience in urban environments.

Carlos holds a PhD in Earthquake Engineering from University College London (UCL), an MSc from Stanford University, and a BSc from Villanova University. He is a registered Professional Engineer (PE) in California, a Chartered Engineer (CEng) in the UK, and has extensive industry experience with firms like Arup and consulting for the UN and EU. His research is funded by NSERC, NSF, and international organizations.

Research interests include seismic resilience, performance-based design, risk analysis, and high-rise building systems. He teaches courses on structural design and seismic engineering at UBC. Notable awards include the EERI Shah Family Innovation Prize (2019) and UCL’s Global Engagement Award (2015).

His collaborations span academia, industry, and cities like San Francisco and Vancouver. Recent work examines seismic risk in sedimentary basins, collapse risk of tall buildings, and post-earthquake recovery modeling. The ESR Lab develops tools to bridge engineering science and policy for resilient urban systems.

Key achievements include deploying as a technical expert post-earthquakes in Ecuador (2016) and Mexico (2017), and publishing over 50 peer-reviewed articles. Current projects focus on machine learning for seismic risk assessments and integrating basin amplification factors into hazard models.