Raul Rincon

I am a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Rice University, where I currently work with Dr.Jamie Ellen Padgett and Dr. Mauricio Sanchez-Silva (Uniandes, Colombia).

My work has ranged from analyzing real-world structural failures and the mechanistic performance of structural members to probabilistic analysis of systems composed of multiple levels of components. This experience has given me the lens to observe infrastructure systems’ complex, multiscale, and adaptive nature. Also, it has motivated me to work on the methodological approaches for modeling such systems.

I envision a move toward systemic approaches enabling us to focus on the complex, uncertain, and adaptive interactions between societies, infrastructure systems, and the stressors from the environment. Towards this vision, my recent research focuses on defining formal mechanisms and algorithmic approaches for modeling, designing, and monitoring such socio-infrastructure-environment interactions. I aim to provide the tools for enhancing the performance and resilience of civil infrastructure systems while guaranteeing that preexisting inequities in the social systems are not exacerbated due to misinformed decision-making.

I have been awarded the Fulbright Scholarship (Fulbright-Minciencias), the IASSAR Best Student Paper Award at the 14th International Conference on Structural Safety and Reliability (ICOSSAR’25), the 1st Place EMI Objective Resilience Student Paper/Presentation Competition at the Engineering Mechanics Institute Conference and Probabilistic Mechanics & Reliability Conference (EMI/PMC2024), the Mario Galan Gomez Scholarship (granted by ECOPETROL, Colombia, to the two best students per department, a total 70 countrywide), and the Outstanding Journal Paper Award for 2018 from the ASCE Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities. I have also received the Innovative Teacher Recognition (2019) from Universidad de los Andes, and the 2021 H. W. Reeves Endowed Scholarship, the 2023 Robert P. and Eleanor Warden Shubinski scholarships, and was selected as a 2024-2025 Future Faculty Fellow at the Brown School of Engineering and Computing in Rice University.