Mapping Infrastructure Interdependencies: Why It Matters and What It Can be Used For

1 pm CT, November 15, 2018

Overview

Critical infrastructure systems are becoming increasingly connected, with dependencies and interdependencies across components and systems. In this webinar, I will present new work to map the complex interdependencies that exist between infrastructures. This work enables critical infrastructure stakeholders to better understand their system vulnerabilities and facilitates effective infrastructure investment decisions to increase resilience. Both theoretical developments and applications to real-world systems will be discussed. I will begin with the novel probabilistic methods that we have developed to model and analyze interdependent infrastructure systems. This includes comprehensive interdependency modeling and a critical component identification methodology to inform investment prioritization. I will then highlight the collaboration between the research team at Georgia Tech and project partners at the City of Atlanta, including with the Office of Emergency Preparedness and Office of Resilience. Outcomes show the importance of considering infrastructure interdependencies to inform decisions to increase critical infrastructure resilience.

Presenter

Dr. Iris Tien joined the faculty in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2014. She received her Ph.D. in Civil Systems Engineering in 2014 from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Tien’s research interests are in probabilistic methods for modeling and reliability assessment of civil infrastructure systems. She has a unique interdisciplinary background that encompasses traditional topics of civil engineering, sensing and data analytics, stochastic processes, and decision making under uncertainty. A previous recipient of the NSF Engineering Innovation Fellowship, Tien was recently selected for the NSF Early Career Investigators Workshop in Smart Cities and the National Academy of Engineering U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium, and her work highlighted at the National Academy of Engineering Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable on Critical Infrastructure Security.