Expertise

Engineering for international development; disaster risk reduction; resilient and sustainable communities; civil infrastructure and housing

At the Keough School

Tracy Kijewski-Correa is the William J. Pulte Director of the Keough School’s Pulte Institute for Global Development, professor of engineering and global affairs, and co-director of the Integration Lab (i-Lab) in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. Kijewski-Correa also is a fellow of the Keough School’s Kellogg Institute for International Studies.

Courses

• Integration Lab II: Preparing for the Field
• Integration Lab III: Analysis & Strategy

Research and Publications

Kijewski-Correa’s research focuses on disaster risk reduction and civil infrastructure challenges posed by increased urbanization and vulnerability. Her interdisciplinary scholarship links science and technology to communities in greatest need, delivering scalable paradigms to enhance the resilience and sustainability of civil infrastructure and inform the decisions of stakeholders such as homeowners, designers, planners, emergency managers and policymakers. She is co-founder of Engineering2Empower, serves on the faculty board of the Real Estate Institute, and is an affiliated faculty member for Notre Dame’s Environmental Change Initiative.

Kijewski-Correa’s team launched a new platform for coastal risk assessment and geospatial decision-support for the State of New Jersey called NJcoast. Her other projects include the green resilience project, developing practitioner-facing integrated life-cycle analysis tools, as well as interdisciplinary research examining homeowner attitudes and actions in reconstruction following major disasters and in adopting pro-active mitigation measures.

In addition to serving as a core faculty in the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) Simulation Center, Kijewski-Correa is serving as the inaugural director of the Structural Engineering Extreme Event Reconnaissance (StEER) network, building on her experiences coordinating responses to the 2017 hurricane season in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands to assess the damage caused by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. Her efforts rallied more than 70 engineers from two dozen organizations who volunteered to assess over 2,600 homes and businesses in the United States, including damage to homes in Naples, Marco Island, and the Florida Keys. She is currently coordinating the response to Hurricane Florence in North Carolina, and also has conducted reconnaissance experiences and longitudinal recovery studies following the 2005 Boxing Day Tsunami in Indonesia and Thailand, the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, and Hurricane Matthew in 2016.

In the Media

• Climate-proofing can lower your bills. Why people still aren’t doing it (Policygenius)
• A California-style approach could save Florida homes during hurricanes (Newsweek)
• The US isn’t ready for stronger hurricanes, experts say. How structures are built could help. (USA Today)

News and Blog Posts

• Notre Dame engineers work to build climate-resilient homes
• In race against hurricane season, engineers launch survey to study incentives for climate-resilient homes (Notre Dame News)
• Disaster recovery in Haiti: a case for prudence and patience (Dignity & Development)
• A time for rainy day decisions—before the next downpour comes (Dignity & Development)