Matiyas A. Bezabeh

Matiyas A. Bezabeh serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering within McGill University's Faculty of Engineering. His office is located in Room 475B of the Macdonald Engineering Building at 817 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 0C3. He teaches core structural engineering courses including CIVE 205 (Statics), CIVE 507 (Wind Engineering), and CIVE 628 (Advanced Design of Wood Buildings) for upcoming academic terms.

• Ph.D., University of British Columbia (2021)
• M.A.Sc., University of British Columbia (2014)
• BSc., Addis Ababa University (2011)

Professor Bezabeh specializes in performance-based design methodologies for timber and hybrid structures under extreme wind and seismic loads. His research focuses on developing frameworks for wind and seismic design of tall mass timber buildings, including probabilistic serviceability assessment, aeroelastic instability analysis, and near-collapse behavior studies. He investigates wind directionality effects, uncertainty modeling, supplemental damping systems, and experimental techniques for structural validation. His work directly contributes to industry standards including Canada's Technical Guide for the Design and Construction of Tall Wood Buildings and the Modeling Guide for Timber Structures published by FPInnovations.

Analysis of his recent publications reveals a concentrated research trajectory toward performance-based wind engineering for tall timber structures. His work integrates wind tunnel testing with advanced computational modeling to address challenges in nonlinear dynamic response, particularly for non-synoptic wind events like tornadoes. The publications demonstrate increasing sophistication in probabilistic methods for structural reliability assessment, with a clear progression from fundamental parametric studies to comprehensive design frameworks applicable to real-world tall timber construction.

• Young Scientist Excellence Award, World Conference on Timber Engineering (WCTE), 2018
• Mitacs Accelerated Ph.D. Fellowship, 2016-2019
• Mitacs-JSPS Fellowship, 2018
• University Graduate Fellowship, UBC, 2013-2016

Professor Bezabeh actively mentors 16 graduate and undergraduate students across diverse research projects in timber engineering. His research group, the McGill Timber Structures Group (McGill-TSG), maintains active collaborations with FPInnovations, Western University's WindEEE Dome, and international partners. He serves on the ASCE Performance-Based Wind Engineering Task Committee and participates in European COST Action CA20139 (HELEN) for taller timber buildings. His research program addresses critical gaps in tall timber construction standards, particularly for buildings exceeding 30 meters where prescriptive codes fall short.

The McGill Timber Structures Group laboratory conducts advanced wind tunnel testing, structural reliability analysis, and development of performance-based design methodologies for timber and hybrid systems. Current projects include multi-hazard analysis of sequential seismic and thunderstorm loads, risk-based wind design frameworks, and development of novel timber-steel hybrid structural systems.