Ketson R. M. dos Santos joins Structural Faculty

The newest addition to the CEGE structural faculty is Ketson Roberto Maximiano dos Santos. dos Santos comes most recently from his position as a Scientist in the Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics (EESD) Lab at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. Prior to that, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Shields Uncertainty Research Group (SURG) at Johns Hopkins University.

dos Santos earned a master’s in Civil Engineering (Structural Engineering, 2014) from the University of São Paulo, São Carlos, Brazil. He then went to Columbia University where he completed a Master’s of Philosophy (2018) and a Doctoral degree (2019) in Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics. He focused his studies around structural reliability and, more specifically, on structural stochastic dynamics and random vibrations. His doctoral dissertation, titled “Stochastic dynamics and wavelets techniques for system response analysis and diagnostics: Diverse applications in structural and biomedical engineering,” was completed under the supervision of Ioannis A. Kougioumtzoglou. He is eager to continue his research at CEGE in the areas of stochastic engineering dynamics and mechanics, uncertainty quantification for complex systems, structural reliability, risk based optimization, and signal processing for stochastic systems.

Beginning in January, dos Santos will be teaching Matrix Structural Analysis. Students will have the opportunity to understand how to use matrix methods in the analysis of linear structures and how these methods are implemented in computers. He also plans to teach courses related to probabilistic methods for engineering dynamics and mechanics and structural reliability.

dos Santos expressed his hope and eagerness about this new chapter, “I am happy to join the structural group at the University of Minnesota because of its commitment to the development of the next generation of engineers based on solid scientific knowledge. CEGE is the right place for me to develop my research in uncertainty quantification and engineering dynamics/mechanics because of its history of pioneering in the development of analytical, computational, and experimental methods, and because of its vision of inspired and innovative engineering for society."