Qualifications:
· Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering (University of California, Berkeley)
· Master’s of Engineering in Geotechnical Engineering (University of Washington)
· Doctor of Philosophy in Earthquake Engineering (ҕl)
Research Interests:
My research focuses on modelling how earthquake ground motions are amplified by near surface soil and rock layers, known as seismic site effects or site response. I specialise in numerical modelling of these site effects, quantifying site effects from earthquake recordings, and incorporating site-specific or non-ergodic site effects into seismic hazard analysis.
My current focus is on improving the modelling of soil nonlinear behaviour and sedimentary basin effects in empirical ground motion models used in regional scale national seismic hazard analyses, as well as the incorporation of microtremor methods into site response modelling techniques. I was heavily involved in the 2022 revision of the New Zealand National Seismic Hazard Model (NSHM) to quantify the site response in Wellington’s sedimentary basins, which have been shown to significantly amplify earthquake ground motions. Now I am assisting in how the NSHM results can best be adopted into building loading standards.
Additional research interests include:
- Understanding and modelling multi-dimensional phenomena in site response analyses.
- Combining regional-scale physics-based ground motion simulations with site-specific site-response analyses.
- Seismic site characterisation of New Zealand’s earthquake recording stations, including microtremor methods such as mHVSR.
Recent Publications:
de la Torre, C. A., Bradley, B. A., Lee, R. L., Tiwari, A., Wotherspoon, L. M., Ridden, J. N., & Kaiser, A. E. (2024). Analysis of site-response residuals from empirical ground-motion models to account for observed sedimentary basin effects in Wellington, New Zealand. Earthquake Spectra. doi:
de la Torre, C. A., Bradley, B. Kuncar, F., Lee, R., Wotherspoon, L., Kaiser, A. (2023). “Combining observed Linear Basin Amplification Factors with 1D nonlinear site-response Analyses to predict site response for strong ground-motions: Application to Wellington, New Zealand”, Earthquake Spectra, 40(1), 143-173 . doi:
de la Torre, C. A., Bradley, B. A., Stewart, J. P., & McGann, C. R. (2022). Can modeling soil heterogeneity in 2D site response analyses improve predictions at vertical array sites? Earthquake Spectra, 38(4), 2451-2478. doi:
de la Torre, C. A., Bradley, B. A., & McGann, C. R. (2022). 2D geotechnical site-response analysis including soil heterogeneity and wave scattering. Earthquake Spectra (Editor’s monthly pick paper), 38(2), 1124-1147. doi:
de la Torre, C. A., Bradley, B., Lee, R. (2020). “Modeling Nonlinear Site Effects in Physics-Based Ground Motion Simulations of the 2010-2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence”, Earthquake Spectra, 36(2), (Editor’s choice paper).
