Michelle Bensi

Michelle (Shelby) Bensi, Ph.D., currently serves as an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Maryland (UMD). She is an affiliated faculty member of the UMD Center for Risk and Reliability and the UMD Center for Disaster Resilience. Dr. Bens's current research centers on the application of PRA concepts and tools, as well as statistical/machine learning techniques, to problems involving engineered systems (particularly nuclear power plants) exposed to natural hazards. Dr. Bensi focuses primarily on topics related to the probabilistic assessment of natural hazards and risk-informed applications. Dr. Bensi works with many natural hazard groups (e.g., seismic, coastal, and fluvial flood hazards) as part of her research activities and aims to transfer knowledge and lessons across those conventional disciplinary divides. She applies Bayesian networks extensively in her research. Dr. Bensi serves as a full member of the American Nuclear Society and American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ANS/ASME) JCNRM and chairs the working group responsible for the ANS/ASME Standard for external flooding PRA at nuclear power plants. Prior to joining the UMD faculty, Dr. Bensi served as an engineer at the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) where she was heavily involved in the agency's response to the Fukushima Dai-ichi reactor accidents. Dr. Bensi earned her Ph.D. in Civil Engineering with Designated Emphasis in Computational Science and Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.