Dave Brunsdon

Dave draws upon a wide range of experience across the building, infrastructure, emergency management and research sectors. The majority of his work involves the co-ordination of complex multi-agency projects within and across these sectors, including a number at the interface between Earthquake Engineering and Emergency Management.

The current focus of Dave’s work is on the recovery following the Canterbury Earthquake. He is co-ordinating projects for the Department of Building and Housing and EQC in support of the residential repair and reconstruction process, and linking this with the work of the Natural Hazards Research Platform.

He has been responsible over the past decade for developing and implementing NZ’s national post-disaster building safety evaluation arrangements. He led the NZ Earthquake Assistance Team that undertook building safety evaluations following the Padang, West Sumatra earthquake in 2009, and co-ordinated the building safety evaluation process on behalf of Christchurch City Council following the 4 September 2010 Canterbury earthquake.

Through his work as Chair of the National Engineering Lifelines Committee, Dave is actively promoting a more structured approach to infrastructure resilience.

He is a past-president of the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering, and an honorary member of the NZ Urban Search and Rescue Search Dog Association.