Barbara Simpson

Barbara Simpson is an Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University. Her research areas include resilient and sustainable design and retrofit of building structures and offshore renewable energy systems, performance-based earthquake engineering, and next-generation computational modeling, including real-time hybrid simulation for fluid-structure interaction.

Her research group explores advanced computational and experimental methods to characterize structural response. Their aim is to develop innovative structural systems that improve structural performance and reduce the effects of natural hazards on the built environment.

Simpson began her career with an architectural engineering degree at the University of Kansas. After receiving her undergraduate degree, she worked in Los Angeles at Thornton Tomasetti before pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley with an emphasis in structural engineering. She began her academic career as a faculty member at Oregon State University.