DrChristian Malaga Chuquitaype

I am a structural engineer and applied dynamicist. I lead the department's research in Structural Earthquake Engineering and direct the Emerging Structural Technologies Lab. My work starts from a single premise: that the most efficient and resilient structures are those designed to move intelligently under extreme loading — rocking, dissipating energy through controlled mechanisms, attenuating seismic waves through engineered periodicity — rather than those that resist it by brute force. The governing question across all my research is whether the dynamic behaviour of such systems can be expressed in forms compact and general enough to hold across scales, configurations, and loading conditions, and used to design from first principles rather than merely to analyse or describe. That pursuit has produced foundational work on inerter-rocking systems, seismic demands in timber buildings, and emerging programmes on seismic metamaterials and extraterrestrial structures. My group is funded across EU, UKRI, British Council, and bilateral partnerships spanning Latin America, Turkey and Africa — a network that reflects the genuinely global distribution of seismic risk and a long-standing commitment to building engineering capacity in seismic-affected communities. Beyond Imperial, I serve as UK Deputy National Delegate to the International and European Associations for Earthquake Engineering and sit on BSI Eurocode committees for structural design.

My Research Group Webpage can be found here. 
My Personal Webpage can be found here. 

HONOURS & AWARDS

• JSPS (by invitation) Fellowship (2025-2026)

• Listed in Stanford/Elsevier Global Top 2% Scientist Ranking (since 2023)

• Featured Paper Award, Engineering Structures (2025)

• Top cited paper, Earthquake Engineering & Structural Dynamics (2022)

• Top cited paper, Earthquake Engineering & Structural Dynamics (2021)

• Best Research Paper, Institution of Structural Engineers UK (2019)

• Commendation for Excellence in Engineering Education, Institution of Structural Engineers UK (2018)

• TK Hsieh Research Award, Best Paper, Institution of Civil Engineers UK (2015)

• Unwin Prize, Best PhD Thesis in Civil Engineering, Imperial College London (2012)

• Dorothy Hodgkin Postgraduate Award, PhD studies, EPSRC and Tata Steel (2007-2011)

• Paviors Laing Award, Worshipful Company of Paviors. Visit to UC Berkeley, USA (2009)

• Huixian Earthquake Engineering Foundation Young Researcher Grant (2008)

• European Commission Full Scholarship (2005-2007)

• Public Commendation (highest honour) for the best Degree Dissertation, UNSA, Peru (2004)

ACADEMIC/INSTITUTIONAL ROLES
• Director, Undergraduate Admissions, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (2022–present)
• Faculty of Engineering Representative, UAT-UK Consortium (2024–present)
• Subject Reviewer, Engineering and Science Admissions Test (ESAT) for Maths 2 and Physics ((2024–present)
• Departmental Post-Doc and Fellows Champion (2019–present)
• Director, MSc Programme in Earthquake Engineering (2023–present)
• Organiser, Structures Seminars (2015–2024)

EDITORIAL SERVICE
• Structures, Elsevier, Associate (handling) Editor (2024–present)

• Innovative Infrastructure Solutions, Springer, Associate (handling) Editor (2022-present)

• Engineering and Computational Mechanics, ICE, Associate (handling) Editor (2026-present)
• Engineering Structures, Elsevier, Guest Editor, Special Issue on AI Empowered Structures (2024–2025),
• Engineering Structures, Elsevier, Young Editorial Board Member (2025–present)
• Computers & Structures, Elsevier, Young Editorial Board Member (2025–present)
• Shock and Vibration, Wiley, Academic Editor, (2025–present)
• Journal of Earthquake and Impact Engineering, Inderscience Switzerland, Past Editor for Europe (2019)

COMMITTEES & PANELS
• Member, BSI B/525/8 Committee (2016–2019)
• Member, BSI B/525/5 Committee (2024–present)

• Member, BSI CB/301 Committee (2026–present)
• Member, CEN/TC 250/SC 5/WG 11 (2004–present)
• Member, ISO/TC 165/WG 10 (2025–present)

• Member, ISO/TC 59/ SC 19/WG 5 (2026–present)

• Member, UKRI Talent Peer Review College (2022–present)
• Member, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Peer Review College (2022–present)
• International Reviewer, Swiss National Science Foundation (2018 - present)
• International Reviewer, CONCYTEC, Peru (2018 - present)
• International Reviewer, CONICYT, Chile (2019 - present)
• Elected Committee Member, Society for Earthquake and Civil Engineering Dynamics (SECED) (2023–present)
• Deputy Representative for the UK to the International and European Associations on Earthquake Engineering (2023–present)
• Committee Member, Dynamics Committee, ASCE Engineering Mechanics Institute (EMI-ASCE) (2024–present)

MEDIA APPEARANCES
• Documentary, Unearthed, TV Series, 2022
• Documentary, Disasters Engineered, TV Series, 2019
• Article, Mexico earthquake: Why did only some buildings collapse? (BBC)
• Interview for HispanTV: Living with earthquakes
• Article, What makes Mexico City so vulnerable to earthquakes? (Archinet)
• interview, Seismic Shift: Is CLT the answer for earthquake zones? (The Possible, WSP Magazine)