Dr Mariantonietta Morga

Mariantonietta has a background in Environmental and Civil Engineering and her expertise includes structural dynamics, seismic engineering, resilience of critical infrastructures to natural hazards, disaster management and contingency planning. She holds a master’s degree in Environmental Engineering and a PhD in Sciences of the Civil and Environmental Engineering – Structures from the Technical University of Bari (Italy). She worked as a consultant and scientist before joining Anglia Ruskin University.

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Background

Mariantonietta holds a master’s degree in “Environmental Engineering” (equivalent to MEng(Hons)) and a PhD in “Sciences of Civil and Environmental Engineering – Structures” from the Technical University of Bari (Italy). She demonstrated a passion for seismic engineering during her master’s degree dissertation and expanded her research interests to structural dynamics and structural damage identification using the dynamic response in her doctoral dissertation. During her doctoral degree, Mariantonietta contributed to the teaching activities of the “Structures design” module at the Technical University of Bari. Mariantonietta also worked as a self-employed engineer in Italy, where she is a chartered engineer.

In 2012 Mariantonietta began working as a scientist at the Mobility Department of AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH (Austria) where she distinguished herself for her work in the European FP7 project NERA in which she led the Work Package 6 and was AIT’s representative. At AIT she researched on or assessed seismic vulnerability and fragility of historical masonry structures and bridges, structural identification through dynamic field-testing data, ground-borne vibrations produced by traffic and trains and seismic microzonation in several research and consultancy projects.

Mariantonietta joined Anglia Ruskin University in 2017 as a research fellow for the European H2020 project LIQUEFACT and became a senior lecturer in 2018. Since then, she contributes to the teaching activities of the Civil Engineering courses and was co-I of the European H2020 projects LIQUEFACT and TURNkey and she is co-I of the European HE project MEDiate. In these projects, she investigates the critical infrastructure resilience to natural disasters.

Spoken Languages

• English
• Italian (native speaker)
• German (B1)

Research interests

Mariantonietta developed research experience in the following subjects:

• Critical infrastructure resilience
• Optimal design of Tuned Mass Dampers
• Steel reinforcement corrosion in RC elements
• Seismic vulnerability of historical buildings
• Static and dynamic field tests of structures
• Artificial accelerogram generation
• Soil-Structure Interaction

Mariantonietta applied the following methodologies according to the subject researched: computational methods (also including AI-based algorithms and stochastic analyses), Finite Elements Analysis, dynamic field tests, questionnaire and interviews.

Areas of research supervision

Mariantonietta is available for research supervision in the following areas:

• Critical infrastructure resilience
• Seismic and wind engineering
• Vibration in structures and infrastructures
• Optimum design methods

For further details or to express your interest please contact Mariantonietta by email: [email protected].

Teaching

Module leader and tutor of the following modules

• Structural analysis (MOD007044) and Structural mechanics (MOD004946)
• Structural dynamics (MOD007106)
• Design technology (MOD004941)
• Research methods and dissertation (MOD005495) and Major project (MOD002385)

Qualifications

• PhD in Sciences of Civil and Environmental Engineering – Structures, Technical University of Bari, Italy
• Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering (equivalent to MEng(Hons)), Technical University of Bari, Italy
• PG Cert in Learning and Teaching (Higher Education), Anglia Ruskin University

Memberships, editorial boards

• Chartered member of the Italian Engineer Institution; register A, (i.e. holding a master’s degree and equivalent to CEng); chartership areas: Civil and Environmental engineering, Industrial engineering and IT engineering
• Fellow of Higher Education Academy
• Member of ISPM- Basic certification of Italian Institute of Project Management
• Member of the Conference Editorial Advisory Board “The Sixteenth International Conference on Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering Computing”, Riva del Garda, Lake Garda, Italy, 16-19 September 2019
• Member of the Conference Editorial Advisory Board “The Thirteenth International Conference on Computational Structures Technology”, Sitges, Barcellona, 4-8 September 2018
• Reviewer of 7 international journal published by Springer, Elsevier, Hindawi, and Frontiers
• Reviewer of Newton funds 2018-2020
• Reviewer of proposals submitted for H2020 and HE funds; reviewer of H2020 projects

Research grants, consultancy, knowledge exchange

• European HE MEDiate (Multi-hazard and risk informed system for Enhanced local and regional Disaster risk management), Co-I for ARU, 2022-ongoing; project grant (including UK partners grants) around € 5000000, permanent webpage https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101074075
• European H2020 TURNkey (Towards more Earthquake-resilient Urban Societies through a Multi-sensor-based Information System enabling Earthquake Forecasting, Early Warning and Rapid Response actions), Co-I for ARU, 2019-2022; overall project grant: € 7999948,75, ARU grant: € 504875,00, permanent webpage https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/821046
• European H2020 LIQUEFACT (Assessment and mitigation of liquefaction potential across Europe: a holistic approach to protect structures / infrastructures for improved resilience to earthquake-induced liquefaction disasters), research fellow and later Co-I for ARU, 2017-2019; overall project grant: € 4944072,50, ARU grant: € 647347,50, permanent webpage https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/700748
• European FP7 project NERA (Network of European Research Infrastructures for Earthquake Risk Assessment and Mitigation), PI for AIT Austrian Institute of Technology and leader of WP6, 2012-2014; overall project grant: € 12014028,73, AIT grant: €264500, permanent webpage https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/262330
• Research and consultancy projects, clients: ASFINAG or OEBB or other Austrian local transport companies, Co-I.
• PhD scholarship “Fondo Giovani”, Technical University of Bari (Italy), 01-2008 to 12-2010.
• Fee waivers and accommodation grants, CISM International Centre of Mechanical Sciences (Italy), courses: “Dynamical inverse problems: theory and application”, 25-29 May 2009; “Monitoring, control and identification of bridges by dynamic methods”, 24-28 May 2010; “Active and passive vibration control of structures”, 27-31 May 2013.

Selected recent publications

Jones, K.G., Morga, M., Wanigarathna, N., Pascale, F., Meslem, A., (2021) ‘Improving the resilience of existing built assets to earthquake induced liquefaction disasters events’, Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering, 19(10), pp 4145-4169

Greco, R., Morga, M. (2019), ‘Optimum design of tuned mass dampers for different earthquake ground motion parameters and models’, The Structural Design of Tall and Special Buildings, 28(17), e1672

Morga, M., Marano, G.C, (2015) ‘Chloride Penetration in Circular Concrete Columns’, International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials, 9(2), pp 173-183

Marano, G.C., Morga, M, Sgobba, S. (2013) ‘Parameters Identification of Stochastic Nonstationary Process Used in Earthquake Modelling’, in S. D’Amico (ed), Earthquake Research and Analysis - New Advances in Seismology, Croatia, IntechOpen, London. 10.5772/54891

Recent presentations and conferences

Jones, K., Mulder, F., Morga, M., Wanigarathna, N., (2022). ‘Improving organisational resilience to disaster events: an FM perspective’, In Jylhä, T., Danivska, V.(eds) The 21st EuroFM Research Symposium, [Proceeding]. The 21st EuroFM Research Symposium, Breda, The Nederlands, Delft University of Technology - Breda University of Applied Sciences

Morga, M. and Jones, K., (2019) Toolkit for resilience assessment of critical infrastructures to earthquake induced soil liquefaction disasters. In: IABSE Symposium - Towards a Resilient Built Environment - Risk and Asset Management, Guimarães, Portugal

Morga, M., Pascale, F., Spacagna, R.L., Paolella, L., Modoni, G., Jones, K. (2018), ‘Risk analysis of the built environment: understanding strengths and weaknesses of both quantitative and qualitative methodologies’, In Martins, A.N., Hobeica, L., Hobeica, A., Santos, P.P., Eltinay, N., Mendes, J.M. The 8th ICBR Lisbon Book of Paper [e-Book of Proceedings], 8th ICBR Lisbon, Portugal (ISBN: 978-989-54741-0-3)

Morga, M., (2015), ‘Improving Seismic Vulnerability Assessment using Field Testing Data’, in Kruis, J., Tsompanakis Y., and Topping, B.H.V., (Eds) The Fifteenth International Conference on Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering Computing, [Proceedings], The Fifteenth International Conference on Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering Computing, Prague, Czech Republic, Civil-Comp Press, Stirlingshire, Scotland, Paper 185

Morga, M., (2014), ‘Identification of crack damage in a simple beam through stochastic characteristics of time response’, In: Cunha, A., Caetano, E., Ribeiro, P., Müller, G, (eds.) 9th International Conference on Structural Dynamics, EURODYN 2014 [Proceedings], EURODYN 2014 IX International Conference on Structural Dynamics, Porto, Portugal