Paolo Bergamo

Postdoc researcher

Paolo Bergamo
Swiss Seismological Service (SED)
ETH Zürich
Paolo Bergamo
NO FO 69.4
Sonneggstrasse 5
8092 Zürich

+41 44 632 89 63

I have joined SED in April 2016 and I am presently working as senior researcher in the Engineering Seismology group. I am an environmental engineer by training and in 2012 I obtained my PhD at Politecnico di Torino (Italy) in Earth Sciences. I worked as postdoc researcher at Politecnico di Torino, focusing on the reconstruction of near-surface velocity models from surface-wave data, and at Queen’s University Belfast, where I worked on time-lapse monitoring of infrastructures with geophysical surveys and studying foundation solutions for marine turbines. At SED my main lines of research include the collation between empirical ground-motions and seismic building codes, the spatial modelling of soil ground-motion amplification at small (microzonation) and large (national) spatial scales, onshore and offshore, and the characterization of instrumented sites with geophysical measurements.

Research activity

April 2016 – present

Researcher at the Swiss Seismological Service (SED), ETH Zürich.

Research activity in the section “Engineering Seismology”, led by prof. D. Fäh. Fields of work:

  • Development of earthquake site response models. Projects: Earthquake Risk Model Switzerland – module E, site response implementation (commissioned by Fed. Council); SERA (Seismology and Earthquake Engineering Research Infrastructure Alliance for Europe) project (Horizon2020) - task 7.4 “towards improvement of site characterization indicators”; Elastic response spectra for alpine valleys, commissioned by the Federal Office for Environment.
  • Investigation and improvement of ground-motion models. Project: SED-Erdbebenforschung zu Schweizer Kernanlagen (commissioned by ENSI).
  • Studies of collation between observed earthquake data and normative building codes. Projects: Development of site-specific elastic design spectra for future building codes, Database for design-compatible waveforms (commissioned by Federal Office for Environment).
  • Acquisition and analysis of seismic data for the site characterization of instrumented sites. Project: SSMNet Renewal – phase 2 (funded by Federal Office for Environment).

 

March 2014 – February 2016

Research fellow at Queen’s University Belfast (UK).

Fields of work:

  • Monitoring the stability of earthworks at risk of failure, combining time-lapse geophysical and geophysical data. Projects: Geophysical Condition Assessment of Railway Earthworks (GeoCARE), Infrastructure Slopes Sustainable Management and Resilience Assessment (iSMART), EPSRC funded
  • Geotechnical studies to validate a novel solution for the foundations of off-shore tidal turbines. Project: Tension piles for marine renewables, funded by InvestNI.
January 2012 – February 2014

Research fellow at Politecnico di Torino (Italy).

Fields of work:

  • Development and implementation of surface wave analysis techniques for the characterization of the near-surface. Projects: 3D Surface Wave inversion for near surface velocity models (commissioned by Saudi Aramco), Understanding the Earth Crust and Upper Mantle Seismic Properties through Joint Surface- and Body-Wave Tomography (MITOR: MIT Boston – Politecnico di Torino collaboration project).

 

Education

January 2009 – December 2011

Philosophy Doctorate (Ph.D.) at Politecnico di Torino (Italy) in Water and
Territory Management Engineering.

Advisors: Prof. Laura Valentina Socco and Prof. Sebastiano Foti
Thesis: “Surface wave analysis in laterally varying media”

January 2006 – May 2008

Master of Science in Environmental Engineering at Politecnico di Torino (Italy).

Thesis: “Innovative processing techniques for 3D seismic data”. Supervisors: Prof. Laura Valentina Socco and Dr. Daniele Boiero.

September 2002 – December 2005

Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering, Politecnico di Torino (Italy).

Thesis: “Laterally and mutually constrained inversion of seismic and electrical data: Torre Pellice case study”. Supervisors: Prof. Laura Valentina Socco and Dr. Daniele Boiero.