Earthquake Engineer Pioneers Resilient Future: The Woman of Steel

The Impact of Earthquakes on Zeynep Gulerce’s Career

Zeynep Gulerce’s professional journey has been profoundly influenced by the devastating effects of earthquakes. As a young civil engineering student in Türkiye, she experienced the catastrophic 7.4 magnitude earthquake that struck the Kocaeli Province. This disaster lasted for 37 seconds but caused immense destruction, claiming over 18,000 lives, injuring tens of thousands, and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless and without businesses. This tragic event motivated Gulerce and many of her peers to dedicate their careers to minimizing earthquake-related damage and loss of life.

After completing her undergraduate studies in civil engineering, Gulerce pursued a master’s degree in earthquake engineering at Middle East Technical University. She then advanced her expertise with a PhD in the same field from the University of California, Davis. Her academic journey was driven by a deep sense of responsibility to prevent future tragedies.

“I think my generation of civil engineers in Türkiye felt this responsibility on their shoulders: to prevent the loss of lives in the next big earthquake,” Gulerce states.

Returning to Türkiye: Applying Knowledge and Training the Next Generation

Upon earning her PhD, Gulerce returned to Türkiye, eager to apply the best practices she had learned abroad. She focused on gathering extensive data on active faults and earthquakes and training the next generation of experts. Her mission was clear: ensure preparedness for future earthquakes to protect lives and properties.

Over the next two decades, Gulerce served as a professor at her alma mater, contributing to numerous national and international projects. Her work included seismic hazard assessments for Türkiye’s critical infrastructure and a NATO project to develop seismic hazard maps for the Western Balkan region. When Türkiye revived its national nuclear power program, Gulerce was a natural choice as a seismic consultant for the nuclear regulatory authority. In this role, she also collaborated with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on various capacity-building missions. In 2022, she joined the IAEA’s External Events Safety Section as a Nuclear Safety Expert.

Continuing Her Life’s Work at the IAEA

At the IAEA, Gulerce continues her lifelong mission of enhancing engineering practices to mitigate earthquake damage. Her role involves supporting countries in developing comprehensive seismic hazard assessments for prospective nuclear facility sites. These assessments are crucial for conducting safety analyses based on IAEA safety standards.

“Nuclear power is needed to meet energy needs,” Gulerce explains. “You cannot avoid all regions where earthquakes are frequent. If you have sufficient resources, and as long as you estimate the risk accurately and adapt your plans accordingly, you can build anything anywhere. We support countries to make the best use of their resources to evaluate and mitigate seismic risk.”

Adapting to Diverse Needs and Learning Opportunities

One of the significant learning opportunities for Gulerce at the IAEA has been adapting to different countries’ approaches to estimating seismic hazards and understanding their unique needs. This experience has enriched her professional skills and broadened her perspective on global seismic risk mitigation.

Addressing Climate Change: A New Challenge

In addition to her work on seismic hazards, Gulerce has developed expertise in another critical area: assessing how climate change impacts the resilience of nuclear installations. She emphasizes that climate change presents a unique challenge to the nuclear industry due to its unpredictability.

Gulerce explains that power plants, including nuclear facilities, are designed to withstand climate-related events. However, these designs typically rely on historical weather data. With climate change causing more severe weather conditions than in the past, new methods are needed to account for these changes in safety assessments.

“One good example is the increasing number of heatwaves, where nuclear power plants have had to stop operations due to rising temperatures. Because these nuclear facilities need to remain safe and stable for decades, we need to find new methods to include the changing climatic conditions in our safety assessments,” she says.

Conclusion

Zeynep Gulerce’s career is a testament to the importance of dedication and continuous learning in the face of natural disasters and evolving challenges like climate change. Her work at the IAEA and her contributions to seismic hazard assessments and climate resilience underscore the critical role of engineering expertise in safeguarding lives and infrastructure. By sharing her knowledge and experiences, Gulerce continues to inspire and train the next generation of experts dedicated to mitigating the impacts of earthquakes and other natural hazards.

For more information, you can refer to the original article on the IAEA website.

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