18 Facts About Nicholas Ambraseys

Nicholas Neocles Ambraseys was a Greek engineering seismologist.

Nicholas Ambraseys was emeritus professor of engineering seismology and senior research fellow at Imperial College London.

For many years Ambraseys was considered the leading figure and an authority in earthquake engineering and seismology in Europe.

Nicholas Ambraseys studied rural and surveying engineering at the National Technical University of Athens and then civil engineering at Imperial College, specialising in soil mechanics and engineering seismology.

Nicholas Ambraseys worked with Professors Alec Skempton and Alan W Bishop and obtained his PhD degree in 1958; his thesis title was "The seismic stability of earth dams".

Nicholas Ambraseys joined the staff in 1958 as a lecturer and he was appointed a reader in engineering seismology in 1968 and full professor of engineering seismology in 1974.

Nicholas Ambraseys founded and became the first chairman of the British National Committee of Earthquake Engineering.

Nicholas Ambraseys specialised in earthquake hazard assessment, the earthquake resistant design of geotechnical structures and strong-motion seismology; on which he published widely, provided consulting services and edited work of other colleagues in numerous journals.

Nicholas Ambraseys was co-founder of the Journal of Earthquake Engineering and one of the early creators of the European Association for Earthquake Engineering.

Nicholas Ambraseys is among the most widely cited authors in the diverse fields of civil engineering and earthquake engineering, and one of the most cited authors in the field of engineering seismology to which he is considered by many to be a founding father.

Nicholas Ambraseys had in his early days researched in the aspect of theoretical ground response analysis.

Nicholas Ambraseys was extensively involved in the European Strong Motion Database project.

Nicholas Ambraseys led a European effort to collect and process various strong motion data from the European region.

Nicholas Ambraseys personally searched, found and collected an enormous amount of information about earthquakes which existed in various libraries, manuscripts and other forms of written communication around the world.

Nicholas Ambraseys worked on hydrodynamics and investigated how to calculate hydrodynamic forces on various types of structures.

Nicholas Ambraseys was one of the early academics who worked on Earthquake Engineering in Europe.

Nicholas Ambraseys was a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, of the European Academy, of the Academy of Athens and the medallist of a number of UK and European learned societies.

In 2005 Nicholas Ambraseys received the Harry Fielding Reid Medal of the Seismological Society of America.