DR. ROSS B. COROTIS
Department of Engineering, University of Colorado at Boulder

Bio
Dr. Corotis has research interests in the application of probabilistic concepts and decision perceptions for civil engineering problems, and in particular to societal tradeoffs for hazards in the built infrastructure. With degrees from MIT, he was on the faculty at Northwestern University, established the Department of Civil Engineering at The Johns Hopkins University and was Dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science in Boulder. He has numerous research, teaching and service awards, chaired several committees on structural safety for ASCE and ACI, served on the steering committee of the National Academies Disasters Roundtable, chaired the NRC Assessment Panel for the NIST Building and Fire Research Laboratory, was Editor of the international journal Structural Safety, and chaired the Executive Committee of the International Association for Structural Safety and Reliability. He is the author of more than 190 publications, and the Editor of the ASCE Journal of Engineering Mechanics. Recently he was elected Vice-Chair of Section 4 of the NAE.

State Department Profile
Dr. Corotis served as the Science Officer for the Office of UNESCO Affairs in the Bureau of International Organizations. In this role, he wrote numerous position papers and responses to proposed UNESCO strategies that provided the USG position on UNESCO science matters. Dr. Corotis also represented the U.S. government at a variety of conferences around the world, including the UNESCO Biennial General Conference, the UNESCO Executive Board, and the UN Economic and Social Council. Dr. Corotis coordinated the U.S. submission of a proposal to UNESCO for a Category II Water Center, which would be the first of its kind, and organized a Water Forum at the Department of State in collaboration with the National Science Foundation, U.S. Geological Society, and the International Hydrological Programme.