Dr Jitendra Agarwal is a Senior Lecturer in Structural Engineering at the University of Bristol. His main areas of research are structural safety, non-linear dynamics, civil engineering systems andcomputational methods. He has 25 publications in reputed journals and refereed conferences. Prior to becoming a lecturer in 2002, he designed seismic modifications for nuclear plants while working for WS Atkins. From 1996 to 2001, he was a postdoctoral researcher working with Professor David Blockley. During this time he developed new approaches to assessing the vulnerability of structures. Earlier he has worked as a scientist for four years in Structural Engineering Research Centre and as a structural engineer in a design consultancy in India. His doctoral research (1991-1994) at the University of Bristol was funded by a Commonwealth Scholarship and he developed an Interacting Objects Process Model (IOPM) for the study of non-linear dynamics and tested it on parallel computing machines. He obtained his first degree in Civil Engineering in 1985 and a Masters degree in Computer Science in 1987 from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, one of the top institutes in India.