AN ALUMNUS from Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan bagged the Best Presentation award at the Multi-Hazards Symposium 2022 of the 17th Association of Pacific Rim Universities held in Bangkok, Thailand last month.

He bested 40 other technical presentations from various countries.

Engineer Dexter Jameson Lim was recognized for his presentation titled “Seismic Fragility of Selected Public High School Buildings in Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines.”

“This paper is from a thesis project he did with his classmates: Engr Jerson Castro, Engr Marvin Alama and Engr Daisy Salugsugan. Their mentors were Engr. Dexter Lo, currently Vice President for Social Development, and Dr Arash Nassirpour of the University College London,” the university said.

“The XU – UCL collaboration is made possible from years of working together on Safe Schools Projects between the two universities. In XU, this is implemented through the Social Development Office,” it added.

The project presented was about the determination of the structural capacity of eight public high school buildings in Cagayan de Oro City by generating structural fragility curves for each building using the Fragility through Capacity Spectrum Assessment method.

The project is also innovative as “it promotes an arising engineering technique of predicting the potential seismic damages to buildings using fragility curves.”

“With our project, we hope to encourage and motivate everyone in the engineering field, that we, with engineering knowledge, can enhance the future better using insights from past events; hence, may we be able to use this ability to create more resilient communities and much safer schools,” Lim said.

The Multi-Hazards Symposium is an annual event by the Association of Pacific Rim Universities. It aims to bring together thought leaders, researchers, and policymakers to exchange ideas and collaborate on practical solutions to the challenges of the 21st century.

This year’s theme was “Innovation Towards Sustainable Growth and Disaster Risk Reduction.”