In this talk, I give a brief and selective review on earthquake engineering to explain what structural engineers do to protect our communities against earthquakes. Following a brief introduction to earthquake prediction and earthquake early warning, I explain why earthquakes matter and why neither the earthquake prediction nor early warning should be regarded as the ultimate goal of earthquake engineering. Instead, the ultimate solution lies on an enhanced built environment which is more robust and resilient against earthquakes. Some recent development in advanced structural systems for seismic protection of buildings is summarized and the new focus of earthquake engineering on community resilience is introduced. The role of computation in the earthquake disaster mitigation is also outlined.

Dr. Qu joined the structural engineering division of IEM in 2013 from Tokyo Institute of Technology, where he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Urban Earthquake Engineering. He received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Tsinghua University in 2010, where he also earned M.E. and B.E. degrees in Civil Engineering. He has also experiences of collaborative researches in University of Edinburgh, Tokyo Tech and UCLA as visiting scholars. His research interest has been focused on damage-control solutions for enhanced seismic performance of building structures, which has recently evolved into the more comprehensive idea of seismic resilience of the built environment. His recent academic awards include the Young Engineers' Contribution Award by IABSE and the First Class Award for Seismic Disaster Mitigation by China Earthquake Administration in 2015.