Hi, I’m Nicole Paul! šŸ‘‹

I’ve recently joined ETH Zurich as a postdoctoral research fellow, exploring how disaster risk models can inform shelter and housing assistance decisions in earthquakes, tropical cyclones, and floods. Prior to that, I completed a PhD researching household displacement and return in disasters at University College London. My background is in structural engineering and I have over a decade of experience quantifying disaster risks. At the Global Earthquake Model Foundation, I conducted earthquake risk assessment at the national and regional scales. At Arup, I was focused on the campus and building-specific scales, with an emphasis on modeling recovery after disasters.

Experience

  • ETH Zurich, 2026-present
  • Zurich, Switzerland

  • Global Earthquake Model, 2019-2023
  • Pavia, Italy

  • Arup, Risk and Resilience, 2014-2019
  • San Francisco, CA, USA

Education

  • PhD Risk and Disaster Reduction, 2026
  • University College London

  • MSc Structural Engineering, 2015
  • Stanford University

  • BSc Civil Engineering, 2013
  • University of California, Berkeley

Other publications

Probabilistic seismic risk assessment of Africa. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 119, 2025.
Calibrating collapse and fatality rates for the assessment of fatalities due to earthquakes. Earthquake Spectra, 2025.
Global building exposure model for earthquake risk assessment. Earthquake Spectra, 39(4), 2023.
Benchmarking housing damage as a driver of population displacement following earthquakes. In SECED 2023, 2023.
Updates to GEM's Global Seismic Risk Model. In 12NCEE, 2022.