Dear Colleagues,
It is my pleasure to announce, also on behalf of the TC Chair Jonathan Bray, that Dr. Paolo Zimmaro of the University of Calabria (Italy) has been selected by the ad-hoc committee as the recipient of the 2024 TC203 Young Researcher Award.

The selection process has been a very hard task considering that 10 nominations widely distributed among different countries and geographical regions and with gender diversity have been received. Moreover all the candidates were clearly of very high level with some of them being excellent candidates. In the selection process, the committee considered both the full CV of the candidates and the scientific merit of three publications that were provided with the nomination.

The members of the selection committee, Adda Athanasopoulos-Zekkos (University of California at Berkeley, USA), Brendon Bradley (University of Canterbury, NZ), Ramon Verdugo (University of Santiago de Chile), Rui Wang (Tsingua University, China) and Stavroula Kontoe (University of Patras, Greece), have done a significant effort for the selection.

Paolo Zimmaro completed his BS and MS degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of Calabria (Italy) and his Ph.D. degree from University Mediterranea, Reggio Calabria (Italy). Following his graduation, he became a post-doctoral scholar at UCLA, later being promoted to Project Scientist and Lecturer. In 2020, he joined the faculty of the University of Calabria where now is an Associate Professor. His research interests include: big data and analytics applied to GEE, seismic fragility of levees and dams, reconnaissance and data analysis related to the 2016 Central Italy earthquake sequence and other extreme events, database development and data analysis related to Next-Generation Liquefaction project, and application of remote sensing, satellite-based tools for post-disaster response and recovery activities.

We express our congratulations to Paolo for the well-deserved achievement.