QuakeCoRE

Natalie is a Professor in the Faculty of Law | Te Kaupeka Ture at the University of Canterbury | Te Whare Wananga o Waitaha.

Natalie's research and teaching interests are in the areas of international human rights, disaster law, refugee law and Pacific legal studies - all broadly under the public law umbrella. The first part of Natalie's career was spent in the New Zealand public service including at the Crown Law Office, the Cabinet Office (Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet) and the Law Commission. She also worked as a VSA volunteer at the Cambodian Defenders' Project in Phnom Penh. Natalie draws on all this expertise and experience in both her research and teaching.

Natalie is passionate and experienced in all levels of university learning and teaching – from first-year to post-graduate. She is currently the Co-Director of Postgraduate Studies in Law, and a member of the Law Faculty’s Leadership Team. Natalie has a strong personal service ethic, with much of her service reflecting the themes of equity and diversity including past governance roles with Trade Aid New Zealand and Amnesty International. Natalie is currently a part-time member of the Human Rights Review Tribunal | Te Taraipiunara Mana Tangata.

Professor Brendon Bradley is an internationally recognised researcher in earthquake engineering, specialising in engineering seismology, strong ground-motion prediction, seismic response analysis, and seismic performance and loss estimation. His work advances the modelling of ground-motion intensity, structural and geotechnical system response, and risk-informed decision-making for resilient infrastructure.

Brendon completed his BE(Hons) in 2007 and PhD in 2009. Before joining the University of Canterbury in 2010, he worked at GNS Science in Wellington and as a postdoctoral fellow at Chuo University in Tokyo, Japan. He has extensive consulting experience in seismic hazard analysis, ground-motion selection, structural and geotechnical response modelling, and seismic risk and loss assessment.

He is a Fellow of Engineering New Zealand (2021), Fellow of the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering (2022), and Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi (2022). Brendon was a co-founder of QuakeCoRE: New Zealand Centre for Earthquake Resilience, serving as Deputy Director (2016–2018) and Director (2019–2024). He is currently Editor of Earthquake Spectra and serves on the Editorial Board of the Bulletin of the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering.

His contributions have been recognised through numerous national and international awards, including the 2023 UC Research Medal, 2021 ISSMGE Bright Spark Lecture Award, 2018 NZGS Geomechanics Award, 2016 Prime Minister’s MacDiarmid Emerging Scientist Prize, 2016 ASCE Norman Medal, 2015 Shah Innovation Prize, 2014 TC203 Young Researcher Award, 2015 UC Teaching Award, 2014 New Zealand Young Engineer of the Year Award, 2014 Shamsher Prakash Foundation Research Award, 2013 Rutherford Discovery Fellowship, 2012 Ivan Skinner EQC Award, and the 2008 NZSEE Research Prize.

[updated May 2026]

Find more information on PhD and postdoc research opportunities at Brendon's personal website: www.brendonbradley.com

My research focuses on Geotechnical Engineering for Resilience and Sustainability, with particular emphasis on:

• Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering and related problems
• Geo-disaster risk assessment and mitigation
• Experimental geotechnics, including soil behaviour from very small to large strain levels
• Geoenvironmental engineering
• Ground improvement techniques for seismic-resilient structures
• Computational geotechnics, including constitutive modelling, DEM, and FEM approaches

I hold BSc and MSc degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio (Italy), a PhD in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering from the University of Tokyo (Japan, 2010), and a Postgraduate Certificate in Tertiary Teaching from the University of Canterbury (2020). My academic career spans 18 years, including research and teaching appointments in Japan (5 years), Australia (3 years), and New Zealand (10 years).

My research has been supported through competitive funding from major agencies, including the Earthquake Commission, Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (Smart Ideas Endeavour Fund), QuakeCoRE, DEVORA, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and Japan Science and Technology Agency. To date, I have secured more than NZ$3 million in external research funding, including over NZ$2 million as primary investigator. I have authored or co-authored more than 180 technical publications.

My recognitions include the JGS Best Paper Award (2022), the IABSE Outstanding Scientific Paper Award (2021), the NZSEE Otto Glogau Award (2020), and a JSPS Research Fellowship (2014). I served as Team Leader of the 2016 NZSEE “Learning from Earthquake” Mission in Kumamoto, Japan, and Team Co-Leader of the 2015 JGS/JSCE “Learning from Earthquake” Mission in Nepal. I am an elected member of the NZGS managment committee, and member of ISSMGE TC101 “Laboratory Testing” and ISSMGE AsRTC1 “Geotechnical Mitigation and Adaptation to Climate Change-induced Geo-disasters in Asia-Pacific Regions.”

Associate Professor Dr Toni Collins is a specialist in land law and disaster law, with a research focus on how legal frameworks respond to major earthquake and other natural hazard events and other forms of disruption. Her work examines the resilience of legal systems to disasters and the effectiveness of contractual obligations, risk allocation mechanisms, and statutory interventions in supporting post-disaster recovery.

Toni’s PhD analysed the impacts of the 2010–2011 Canterbury earthquakes on commercial landlords and tenants, offering new insights into how these relationships operate under seismic stress. Her current research extends this analysis to the 2016 Kaikōura and Wellington earthquakes, the 2023 Auckland floods and Cyclone Gabrielle and more recently the impacts of sea level rise through climate change tracing how communities and regions are supported (or not) through legal preparedness.

Her broader interests include disaster recovery law, emergency management law, land system resilience, and the interface between land law and risk governance. Toni teaches Land Law at UC, at both introductory and advanced levels integrating contemporary case studies and disaster-related legal challenges to support students’ understanding of how the law functions in real-world contexts.

Key words: disaster, resilience, legal frameworks, legal preparedness

My subsurface engineering group is working on some major challenges for a safe, low-emissions future. How can we pull CO2 out of the atmosphere at low cost? How can we safely store massive amounts of hydrogen? How can we anticipate volcanic eruptions and human-triggered seismicity?

𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗯𝗼𝗻 𝗗𝗶𝗼𝘅𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗮𝗹 - we are designing systems that combust forestry waste and dissolve the CO2 in geothermal systems. This boosts renewable electricity and reduces CO2 in the atmosphere. Our goal is to find a pathway beyond 1 million tonnes of removals each year at a cost less than $100 per tonne.

𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗛𝘆𝗱𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗲𝗻 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲 - we are predicting the costs and consequences of injecting hydrogen (a low density, reactive gas that is appetising to microbes) into depleted natural gas fields. The goal is to, later, recover as much gas as possible while also meeting the size of the future industrial demand, which is expected to exceed the capacity of surface tanks.

𝗩𝗼𝗹𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗰 𝗘𝗿𝘂𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 - we are trialling machine learning systems that can receive real-time seismic data from GeoNet and use this to suggest how likely an eruption will be. We use data from volcanoes around the world, looking for the common patterns between them that occur before eruptions.

𝗛𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻-𝗧𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗘𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗵𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 - we build systems that learn how underground injection of geothermal fluids, or extraction of natural gas, changes the forces on buried faults in a way that triggers earthquakes. We use these systems to make predictions of how many earthquakes might be caused by large energy projects and how these risks can be minimised.

Writing about these things at my blog.

Professor John Hopkins is a comparative public lawyer specialising in disaster law, emergency management law, multi-level governance, administrative justice, and anti-corruption. He is the Director of the LEAD Institute for Law, Emergencies and Disasters at Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha University of Canterbury, and Co-Lead of Disciplinary Theme 3 (Law, Planning and Economics) for the NZ Centre for Earthquake Resilience Te Hiranga Rū (QuakeCoRE). He also chairs the International Disaster, Emergency and Law Networks (IDEAL) and serves as Pacific Editor of the Yearbook of International Disaster Law.

His research focuses on disaster risk reduction, emergency powers, crisis governance, resilience policy, and legal frameworks for natural hazards across Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific. Dr Hopkins has lead major projects funded by Resilience to Nature’s Challenges, NHC-Toka Tū Ake (The NZ Hazards Commission), DEVORA (Determining Volcanic Risk in Auckland), the United Nations and the IFRC (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies) Disaster Law Programme, advancing evidence-based approaches to urban resilience, volcanic risk, and earthquake governance.

In anti-corruption law, John specialises in Pacific governance, money laundering, and regional integrity systems. His recent work with Dr Chat Nguyen, in collaboration with Transparency International New Zealand (TINZ), examines the links between corruption, financial crime, and regulatory capacity in the South Pacific. Dr Hopkins is a former Board member of TINZ.

His earlier scholarship on European regionalism, devolved governance, and comparative constitutional systems remains widely cited and his still regularly contributed to this field. He continues to publish on comparative law, constitutional law, administrative law, international law, and public sector accountability both in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand and globally.

John has held visiting positions at Georgetown University (NZ Fulbright Scholar), Central European University (MUNDUS-MAPP Scholar), the University of Primorska (KEENZ Scholar), and the University of Oxford (Canterbury Scholar). He was elected to the International Academy of Comparative Law in 2013 and is the current New Zealand Chair of the Australasian Law Academics Association.

Dr Robin Lee is a geotechnical and earthquake engineer specialising in engineering seismology, ground‑motion modelling, and seismic hazard analysis. He is a member of the Geotechnical Engineering Group in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Canterbury.

His research focuses on understanding and modelling earthquake‑induced ground motions, improving seismic hazard characterisation, and advancing geotechnical earthquake engineering practice. Robin integrates high‑performance computing, machine learning, and physics‑based simulation to develop next‑generation tools for predicting earthquake impacts on soils, structures, and infrastructure systems.

He works collaboratively across engineering, computational science, and seismology communities to deliver models and methods that support safer, more resilient built environments in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally.

For more, including postgraduate research opportunities, see my personal website:
https://lee-robin.github.io/

I am a researcher in Risk Science and Civil Systems Engineering. My research examines how hazards and other changes affect interconnected infrastructure, communities and economies, and how we can make better decisions under uncertainty.

I work across risk analysis, complex systems, climate adaptation and resilience, combining quantitative modelling with applied research alongside government, industry and communities. A central focus of my work is translating advances in risk science into methods and tools that can improve real-world planning and decision-making.

My research interests are linked to different aspects of building design (i.e. architectural, structural, materials selection, etc.) and building conservation. My previous research projects include developing a low-invasive technique for assessing damage to steel reinforcement in earthquake-damaged buildings and investigating the effects of earthquakes on the mechanical and fatigue properties of steel reinforcement.

I am leading a large research project on using 3D Concrete Printing (3DCP) in low- and medium-density residential buildings. The research aims to develop low-carbon concrete mixes and earthquake-resilient structural elements and systems suitable for 3DCP technologies. 

Professor Geoff Rodgers is a mechanical engineer specialising in applied mechanic design, dynamic system modelling, instrumentation, and control, with applications spanning earthquake engineering, structural dynamics, and biomedical engineering. While these areas of application may appear diverse, they are unified by the same underlying mechanics and analytical skill set, enabling Geoff to translate core expertise across disciplines.

His work in structural damping devices, energy‑dissipation systems, and nonlinear dynamic behaviour has progressed from fundamental concept development through modelling, experimental validation, and full‑scale deployment. These technologies have been adopted within the Christchurch rebuild, including in the Tūranga central library, where they contribute to enhanced seismic resilience and controlled structural response. Internationally, his devices have been implemented in the Casa Adelante building in San Francisco, supporting improved building resilience and performance‑based seismic design in high-hazard urban environments.

Geoff has led major programmes in seismic damper design and implementation, structural health monitoring, including assessment of building performance throughout the Canterbury earthquake sequence, supported by collaborations with UCLA, Texas A&M, and Duke University. He also works closely with the International Joint Research Laboratory for Earthquake Engineering at Tongji University in Shanghai, undertaking three large‑scale shake‑table experiments in reinforced concrete and steel construction using international testing facilities beyond the scale of those available in New Zealand.  His ongoing research involves many collaborative projects including with the University of British Columbia the University of Northern British Columbia in Canada, Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, and Tongji University in China.

In bioengineering, Geoff’s research aims to improve the quality of life for joint‑replacement patients through advanced measurement and modelling techniques. His work includes dynamic measurement, signal processing, nonlinear modelling, video motion tracking, gait analysis, and biomechanics. Projects span acoustic monitoring of total hip replacement implants, lung mechanics, and computational optimisation of orthopaedic implant design.

Geoff’s research also extends to the development of scientific data collection equipment for use in Antarctic field conditions, supporting the collection of ice samples and field observations that support the field of ice dynamics and flow modelling. Work from previous projects has undergone field testing during Antarctic field seasons.

He has served as a Management Committee Member (2018-2025) and as President of the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering (2022-2024), and maintains active links with the structural engineering profession. His research has received numerous awards and has been widely featured in international and national media, including the BBC, German television, Radio New Zealand, Australasian Science Magazine, and The Press.