Sharing Center for Catastrophe Modeling and Resilience Highlights, Research News, Events and Industry Happenings

October 6, 2025

CERCat Projects are Underway

Our CERCat researchers and industry partners are teamed up and tackling our following first round of projects.

October 2, 2025

ARISE-US Conference: Building Connections for Resilient Communities

Our Center for Catastrophe Modeling and Resilience at Lehigh University proudly spent October 1-2, 2025 attending the ARISE-US conference in Providence, RI. This was a key event for the US Chapter of the United Nations Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) ARISE Global Network.

August 7, 2025

CERCat Inaugural Industry Advisory Board Meeting

On August 7-8, 2025 the Consortium for Enhancing Resilience and Catastrophe Modeling (CERCat) held its inaugural Industry Advisory Board Meeting. Our Industry Advisory Board played a critical role providing project feedback and their voting helped us prioritize the key projects we’ll tackle together during our first year.

June 12, 2025

The Consortium for Enhancing Resilience and Catastrophe Modeling (CERCat) is Established!

We are thrilled to announce the launch of our research consortium dedicated to advancing the fields of catastrophe modeling and resilience. This dynamic initiative led by Lehigh University and Rice University will build strong partnerships between leading university researchers and expert industry professionals. By uniting academic rigor with practical expertise, CERCat aims to tackle critical research challenges and collectively elevate the standards and capabilities within the catastrophe modeling sector.

May 20, 2025

15th Americas Conference on Wind Engineering

Representatives from the Center for Catastrophe Modeling and Resilience (CAT), and from the newly established Consortium for Enhancing Resilience and Catastrophe Modeling (CERCat)*, were pleased to attend the 15th Americas Conference on Wind Engineering (ACWE) in St. Louis, MO from May 19-22, 2025.

March 7, 2025

Attended the 2025 World Bosai Forum in Sendai City, Japan

Dr. Ethan Yang, a faculty member in the Center for Catastrophe Modeling and Resilience, and Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Lehigh University, attended the 2025 World Bosai Forum in Sendai City, Japan from March 7th to March 10th, 2025.

Paolo Bocchini speaking at event
October 17, 2024

CERCat IUCRC Planning Meeting Hosted on Campus

In October we hosted over 100 leading cat modeling experts from industry, government, and academia to work together towards establishing an NSF and NOAA funded Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) called: Climate, Equity, and Resilience in Catastrophe Modeling (CERCat). CERCat will bring together leaders in the field to steer research projects to address identified needs. Our Center will also build a broader ecosystem for recruiting, networking, and training.

August 15, 2024

Climate Resilience Center Awarded

The Department of Energy has awarded a Climate Resilience Center at Lehigh. Dr. Ethan Yang will serve as PI, and we are recruiting!

May 10, 2024

NSF Awards IUCRC Planning Grant

The National Science Foundation has awarded a planning grant to pursue an Industry University Cooperative Research Center in Catastrophe Modeling.

March 31, 2024

CatModeling Workshop 2023

The leadership team of the Catastrophe Modeling Coordination Network met leaders from the private sector, public sector, and academia for a day long workshop at the Millennium Downtown Hotel, New York City on Friday, March 31 (2023) to formally launch the center.

December 7, 2023

The CatModeling Tour Continues

The Catastrophe Modeling & Resilience Tour has now visited several Universities and Institutions. The latest was the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. If you are interested in having our tour visit you, please get in touch .
November 22, 2023

Applications Are Open

Applications for our Master's Degree in Catastrophe Modeling and Resilience and the associated Graduate Certificate are now open.

September 21, 2023

Graduate Degrees Officially Approved

Lehigh University's Senate officially approved the new Master of Science in Catastrophe Modeling and Resilience, and the Graduate Certificate in Catastrophe Modeling and Resilience. These programs are the first in the world! Applications will open very soon.

August 31, 2023

CatModeling Center Participates in Influenza Forecast

Dr. McAndrew's team has been selected to participate in the 2023-24 Influenza Forecasting program with their proposal for the "Development of Forecasts and/or Scenario Projections for Influenza to Inform Public Health Decision-Making."

July 13, 2023

Optimal Sampling Strategies

Functional Quantization is an excellent sampling strategy for many practical applications involving random processes and fields. At one of the most important international conferences in the field (ICASP 14 in Dublin, Ireland), Sena Mursel showed that Functional Quantization can be improved and tailored to optimize performance on the statistics we care the most about.

July 11, 2023

Center Featured in Keynote at ICASP 14

Dr. Jamie Padgett (Rice University), one of the leaders of our CatModeling Coordination Network, gave a broad-ranging and insightful keynote speech at ICASP 14 and listed our efforts among the many tackling risk, resilience, and extreme event research.

June 8, 2023

CatModelers at Engineering Mechanics Conference

Ms. Xinyue Wang presents the work of the Center at the 2023 Conference of the Engineering Mechanics Institute in Atlanta. She is paving the way for class vulnerability curves for transmission towers.

May 20, 2023

New CatModeler from the Center

Mohanad Khazaali, newly hooded doctor, keeps up the tradition of the center at Verisk - Extreme Event Solutions, certainly one of the most prominent CatModeling firms in the world.

April 22, 2023

The Brilliance of Resilience

The Geisinger School of Medicine organized the "Resilience Colloquium 2023: The Brilliance of Resilience." The research and educational programs of the Catastrophe Modeling Center were featured in one of the keynotes.

March 31, 2023

Catastrophe Modeling and Data (Private Sector, Public Sector and Academia)

The leadership team of the Catastrophe Modeling Coordination Networ k met leaders from the private sector, public sector, and academia for a day long workshop at the Millennium Downtown Hotel, New York City on Friday, March 31 (2023) to formally launch the center. The workshop consisted of two panel discussions focused on catastrophe modeling research and education, each followed by breakout sessions to discuss key takeaways and brainstorm how the three sectors can synergize and...
March 13, 2023

Wildfire Risk Assessment

Xinyue Wang publishes a paper on wildfire risk , presenting the first mechanistic approach to the problem. Read more .
December 24, 2021

A Sharper Focus on Cat Modeling

Paolo Bocchini, Daniel Conus, Brian Davison and their colleagues leverage their collaborative experience in probabilistic modeling to sharpen their focus on catastrophe modeling , which is still a niche discipline in academia.
June 4, 2018

Lehigh University Researchers Track Bats to Predict Next Ebola Outbreak

A fruit-eating mammal with an average wingspan of 3 feet could hold the answer to where the next Ebola outbreak will occur. Two Lehigh University professors are among a growing number of researchers investigating the role of African bats in the spread of the highly fatal virus.
August 12, 2016

Computing the Optimal Disaster Response

Lehigh researchers develop a new numerical optimization approach specifically tailored to study post disaster recovery of infrastructure systems, and they apply it to the transportation network of San Diego.