Fire Protection
Purpose:
To study, evaluate and recommend research and report on structural aspects of fire protection, from those of whole committees to those of individual structural members, including fire resistant materials, fire retardants, fire protection systems, fire protection provisions in building codes and desirable ratings for various exposures as well as repair of fire damage.
MEET THE co-CHAIR
Ali Ashrafi, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE
Dr. Ali Ashrafi received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics from Columbia University and is currently a Principal at Thornton Tomasetti. Ali is a licensed civil and fire protection engineer, a Certified Fire and Explosion Investigator, and has overseen numerous projects including performance based structural fire engineering at several iconic structures throughout the US such as the Shed in New York City, Seaport World Trade Center in Boston, Pittsburgh International Airport, and several industrial projects. Ali also has extensive experience investigating damages to buildings and facilities, including as a result of fires. Ali’s work includes looking at emerging topics in fire safety such as fire safety of mass timber construction, electric vehicles, and energy storage in urban environments, as well as wildfire resilience. Dr. Ashrafi was an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University for 13 years, having taught both Structural Fire Engineering and Earthquake and Wind Engineering. Ali is co-chair of the ASCE Fire Protection Committee.
MEET THE co-CHAIR
Thomas Gernay, Ph.D., Aff.M.ASCE
Dr. Thomas Gernay is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Systems Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. He is passionate about advancing structural fire safety and resilience of the built environment and aims to further contribute to this mission as Co-Chair of the ASCE/SEI Fire Protection Committee. In previous work with technical committees, he led the bulletin on Performance-Based Fire Design for Concrete Structures for the International Federation for Structural Concrete CEB-FIP and was one of the primary authors for the new fire appendix in the ANSI/SDI AISI S100-2024 cold-formed steel standard. Thomas is an Associate Editor for ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering and for Springer’s Fire Technology. He is also a co-author of SAFIR, a finite element software to model the behavior of structures in fire. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award and the AISC Terry Peshia Early Career Faculty Award.
Membership
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Seyed Ali Ashrafi,
P.E., M.ASCE
Co-Chair -
Thomas Gernay,
Ph.D., Aff.M.ASCE
Co-Chair
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Bianca Augustin,
Aff.M.ASCE
ASCE Staff Contact -
Farid Alfawakhiri,
Ph.D., P.E., P.Eng
Member -
Seyed Ali Ashrafi,
P.E., M.ASCE
Member -
Ataollah Taghipour Anvari,
Ph.D., A.M.ASCE
Member
-
Srishti Banerji,
Aff.M.ASCE
Member -
Konstantinos Belivanis,
Ph.D., Aff.M.ASCE
Member -
Pratik Bhatt,
Ph.D., A.M.ASCE
Member
-
Maxwell Coar,
Ph.D.
Member -
Rachel Chicchi Cross,
Ph.D., A.M.ASCE
Member
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Alok Abhay Deshpande,
Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE
Member -
Michael Drury,
Ph.D., EIT, A.M.ASCE
Member
-
Hamed Ebrahimian,
P.E., M.ASCE
Member
-
Augusto Gil,
Ph.D., Aff.M.ASCE
Member -
Emily Guglielmo,
P.E., F.SEI, M.ASCE
Member -
Augustin Guibaud,
Ph.D., Aff.M.ASCE
Member -
Qianru Guo,
P.E., M.ASCE
Member
-
Faraz Hedayati,
Ph.D.
Member -
Nan Hua,
Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE
Member
-
Ann E. Jeffers,
Ph.D.
Member
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Negar Elhami Khorasani,
Ph.D., A.M.ASCE
Member
-
Kevin Joseph LaMalva,
P.E., F.SEI, F.ASCE
Member -
Zhi Li,
Ph.D.
Member -
Zhi Liu,
Ph.D., Aff.M.ASCE
Member
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Anandharam Mourougassamy,
P.E., M.ASCE
Member
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Shuna Ni,
Ph.D.
Member
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Ramla Karim Qureshi,
Ph.D., EIT
Member
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Serdar Selamet,
Ph.D., A.M.ASCE
Member -
Kevin Wayne Smith,
P.E., M.ASCE
Member
-
Jose Luis Torero,
CPEng, M.ASCE
Member
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Xia Yan,
Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE
Member
-
Zheda Zhu,
Ph.D.
Member