Welcome to the EEFIT Kahramanmaraş Team blog. We are thrilled to have you here and we hope you find our content informative, engaging, and thought-provoking.  We would like to use this platform to remember those who have died and those who are affected by this tragic event.  The devastation, the survivors’ experiences, and our desire to prevent this from happening again, are what drive us. The EEFIT mission will enable us to observe the damage and the effects of the earthquake first-hand to identify the main lessons that can be learned. These lessons are key to helping direct future research and prioritise actions for change.

Before we get to our articles, which will run between the 1^st of March 2023, the start of our remote mission, to the end of the field reconnaissance mission on the 17^th of March 2023, we want to take a moment to introduce ourselves. Our blog is run by our whole team, divided into subgroups of interest and expertise.

The EEFIT team is led by Dr. Yasemin Didem Aktas of University College London (UCL) and Professor Emily So from the University of Cambridge.  Both engineers by training, they have been involved in numerous post-earthquake reconnaissance missions and are united in their mission to end natural disasters.  In our subgroups, we have:

• Seismology – Dr Matthew Free* (group lead, Arup), Dr Sarah Jean Boulton (University of Plymouth), Dr Aisling O’Kane (GNS Science/University of Canterbury), Fatma Sevil Malcipglu (Boğaziçi University), Kökcan Dönmez (Boğaziçi University).
• Geotechnics- Professor Gopal Madabhushi* (group lead, University of Cambridge), Joshua Jones (AECOM), Dr Ioanna Triantafyllou (Center for Security Studies, Greece), Ozcan Gozenoglu (Arup), Teoman Efeoglu (university of Bristol).
• Structures- Dr Viviana Novelli * (group lead, Cardiff University), Tuğçe Tetik (Boğaziçi University), Dr Tansu Gokce (University of Bristol), Dr Ahsana Parammal Vatteri (UCL), Hristo Pavlov Markov (Willis Towers Watson), Nurullah Bektas (Széchenyi István University), Mariana Asinari (Mott MacDonald), Kökcan Dönmez (Boğaziçi University), Eser Cabuk (Dolfen Engineering & Consulting / Middle East Technical University), Professor Sinan Acikgoz (University of Oxford), Sahin Dede (UCL).
• Infrastructure- Anton Andonov* (group, lead, Mott MacDonald), Akbey Kalkan (Sellafield Ltd.), Dr Ji-Eun Byun (University of Glasgow), Dr Eyitayo Opabola (UCL).
• Relief and Recovery- Dr Tolga Ali Ozden (group lead, Canakkale University), Professor Cassidy Johnson (UCL), Sahin Dede (UCL), Dr Ahsana Parammal Vatteri (UCL).
• Remote Sensing – Dr Pietro Milillo*(group lead, University of Houston), Professor Sinan Acikgoz (University of Oxford), Joshua Jones (AECOM), Kökcan Dönmez (Boğaziçi University).

Together, we are committed to bringing you the highest quality, peer-reviewed content possible, and to share the findings of our EEFIT hybrid reconnaissance mission in the devastated Kahramanmaraş region in Turkey with the world.