Eleni Chatzi

Eleni Chatzi (born 18 November 1981) is a Greek civil engineer, researcher, and a professor and Chair of Structural Mechanics and Monitoring at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.^[1]

Eleni Chatzi
Chatzi in 2024
Alma mater	National Technical University of Athens
Occupation	Civil Engineer
Known for	Chair of Structural Mechanics and Monitoring at the Institute of Structural Engineering, ETH Zurich

Education

Chatzi obtained her diploma and master's degree MSc in Civil Engineering with honors from the Department of Civil Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). In 2010 she obtained her PhD Degree with distinction from the Department of Civil Engineering & Engineering Mechanics at Columbia University.

Work

In 2010 Chatzi was hired as the youngest assistant professor at ETH Zurich. She was promoted to an associate professor in 2017^[2][3] and a full professor in 2024.^[4] Chatzi works in the domains of Scientific and Physics-Enhanced Machine Learning, building data-driven decision-support tools for structures, infrastructures and engineered systems at-large. Her research follows a hybrid modeling approach, coupling physics-based simulation tools with data stemming from monitoring observations^[5][6][7][8] for supporting operators and engineers in the management of their assets.^[9] She is an expert in the field of Structural Health Monitoring, with applications extending across a range of systems including civil, mechanical and aerospace structures and components. She has delivered a number of works on the state/parameter^[10][11][12] state/input^[13][14] and state/input/parameter identification of dynamical systems,^[15] relying on novel Bayesian filtering formulations.^[16][17] On the hybrid modeling front, Chatzi's work involves a set of approaches for reducing physics-based simulations, drawing from structural mechanics of complex phenomena (plasticity/nonlinear dynamics/fracture), so that these may be fused with data - possibly on the fly, as data is attained.^[18][19] This includes work on computational hysteretic multiscale schemes,^[20][21][22] schemes for increasing accuracy and stability in fracture simulations,^{[23][24][25][26]} substructuring schemes^[27][28] as well as Model Order Reduction schemes with parametric dependencies.^[29] Chatzi has delivered an array of works on efficient dynamic system metamodels that incorporate uncertainties by employing stochastic and machine learning schemes for the purpose of virtualization/digital twinning,^[30][31] online monitoring and control.

Chatzi further serves as an editor for international journals in the domains of Dynamics and Structural Health Monitoring, including the Journal of Sound and Vibration, Structure & Infrastructure Engineering, the Journal of Structural Engineering, Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing, the Journal of Engineering Mechanics, as well as the Sections on Structural Sensing and Computational Methods in Structural Engineering of Frontiers in Built Environment. From 2016-2021, she served as coordinator of the joint ETH Zürich & University of Zurich PhD Programme in Computational Science. Her work on use of monitoring toward self-aware infrastructures has been honored with the Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering research Prize, awarded by the American Society of Civil Engineering. She is further recipient of the 2020 EASD Junior Research Prize in the area of Computational Structural Dynamics, awarded by the European Association of Structural Dynamics (EASD), the 2023 J.M. Ko Award for excellence in Structural Engineering, and the recipient of the 2024 SHM Person of the Year award, selected by the editors of Structural Health Monitoring: An International Journal.

Awards

• 2024 SHM Person of the Year award^[32]
• 2023 J.M. Ko Award for excellence in Structural Engineering^[33]
• 2020 ASCE Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize^[34]
• 2019 Telford Premium Prize
• 2019 TUM-IAS Hans Fischer Fellowship awarded by the TÜV Süd Foundation