Welcome!

Dr. Kostas Papakonstantinou is an Associate Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Penn State. Professor Papakonstantinou has received a five year Diploma in Civil Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens (N.T.U.A), a M.S. in Structural Design and Analysis of Earthquake Resistant Structures at N.T.U.A, a M.S. in Structural Engineering from the University of California, Irvine (UCI) and a Ph.D. from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UCI. He has worked as a Post-Doctoral Scholar at UCI and has been an Associate Research Scientist at the Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Department at Columbia University, from 2013 to 2015, when he joined the faculty at Penn State.

Research areas of the group are briefly categorized in:

• Probabilistic analysis (reliability of structural systems, stochastic finite elements, uncertainty quantification, random vibrations, simulation of random processes and fields, fragility, risk analysis, sampling methods)
• Decision making under uncertainty (stochastic control, optimum decision making, Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes, reinforcement learning)
• Optimization and inverse analysis (Bayesian analysis, nonlinear Kalman filtering, system identification, state estimation, model updating, damage assessment, mixed integer nonlinear programming)
• Computational structural mechanics (hysteretic finite elements, multi-physics problems, hybrid elements, solution techniques, plasticity, damage modeling, structural damping, nonlinear dynamics)
• Machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (Deep neural networks, deep reinforcement learning, supervised and unsupervised learning, pattern recognition, classification)

Professor Papakonstantinou’s group performs research in all the above areas, develops new methods and tools, and deals with several applications and problems involving probabilities, optimization and structural mechanics and engineering analysis.