People

Meet the interdisciplinary team behind SHAPE Lab. We bring together engineering, AI, simulation, and decision science to understand and reduce risks from natural hazards.

Principal Investigator

Ji Yun Lee

Ji Yun Lee, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Washington State University

Ji Yun Lee leads the SHAPE Lab, where her team develops AI-enabled simulation and decision models to understand how people, infrastructure systems, institutions, and communities respond to natural hazards. Her research spans stochastic hazard modeling, structural reliability, human decision-making, and infrastructure and community resilience.

Before joining Washington State University in 2017, she was a Postdoctoral Scholar at UCLA and Visiting Faculty at the University of Central Florida. She earned her Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology, her M.S. from Stanford University, and her B.S. from Korea University.

Email Google Scholar

Office: PACCAR 158, Washington State University

Selected Honors

  • NSF CAREER Award, 2023
  • Google Research Scholar Award, 2022
  • ASCE State of the Art of Civil Engineering Award, 2026
  • PacTrans Outstanding Researcher Award, 2025
  • WSU CEE Outstanding Junior Faculty Research Award, 2024
  • NAE US Frontiers of Engineering alumna

Current Members

Zhujun Wang
Postdoctoral Scholar

Zhujun Wang

Interdependent decision-making between governments and citizens, with an emphasis on game-theoretic model development.

Decision-Making Game Theory
Email
Abdel-Aziz Sanad
PhD Candidate

Abdel-Aziz Sanad

Spring 2023 to Present

Physics-informed and data-driven hurricane vulnerability assessment and wildfire simulation modeling.

Wildfire Modeling AI Modeling Vulnerability
Email
Yihan Chen
PhD Student

Yihan Chen

Fall 2026 to Present

AI-driven modeling of individual and collective decision-making under natural hazard risk.

Human Decisions AI Modeling
Email
Md. Mehedi Hasan
MS Student

Md. Mehedi Hasan

Fall 2025 to Present

Wildfire-related power outage prediction using satellite imagery and data-driven modeling.

Wildfire Satellite Imagery
Email

Alumni

Former SHAPE Lab researchers continue their work across academia and industry.

Nasimeh Rashidi

Ph.D., Summer 2026

Dynamic wildfire risk assessment through deep learning and wildfire risk management behaviors.

Wildfire Risk Deep Learning

Vishnupriya Jonnalagadda

Ph.D., May 2025

Current position: Postdoctoral Scholar at Florida State University

Uncertainty analysis for infrastructure risk and resilience assessment.

Uncertainty Infrastructure Risk

Fangjiao Ma

Ph.D., December 2023

Current position: Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Nevada, Reno

Wildfire risk and resilience assessment and homeowner proactive actions.

Wildfire Resilience Human Decisions

Jie Zhao

Ph.D., August 2022

Current position: Engineer at Verisk Analytics

Supply chain resilience and catastrophe insurance.

Supply Chains Insurance

Seyed Hooman Ghasemi

Postdoctoral Scholar, February 2020 to January 2021

Current position: Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham

Structural reliability and transportation resilience.

Structural Reliability Transportation

Stanley Kouassi

M.S., December 2019; Fulbright Scholarship

Current position: Project Manager at Louis Berger International

Life-cycle assessment under uncertainty.

Life-Cycle Assessment Uncertainty

Undergraduate Alumni

  • Jane Gorski
  • Nathan Dickerson