Newswise — Dr. John van de Lindt, professor of structural engineering at The University of Alabama, has vast experience with building structures and earthquakes. He has done extensive research in Japan, Chile and the US West Coast. He joined UA in the fall and is part of our structural engineering team in the Civil Engineering Department.

As part of the new construction in UA’s Science and Engineering Complex, a state-of-the-art structures laboratory will debut in January 2012 with a new “quake” table for researching structure stability during earthquakes.

Dr. van de Lindt will be traveling to New Zealand at the end of March as part of a research study investigating light residential wood frame construction damage. New Zealand residential building codes are very similar to U.S. standards, so this will provide very realistic views of what damage could happen in the states and he’ll be reviewing how building codes could be improved.