Program Committee


Program Committee

Composed of representatives from across the fire safety and engineering field, as well as partner organizations, government agencies, universities, and related stakeholders, the 2026 WUI Fire Engineering Summit Program Committee will put together an impressive lineup of presenters to speak to a wide range of technical engineering topics within our focus area of Wildland-Urban Interface Fires.

The focus of this event will be on interdisciplinary engineering research on emerging technologies and solutions to better assess WUI fire risks and develop mitigation strategies that lead to more resilient WUI communities.

On behalf of the program committee, we hope you join us in College Park, Maryland in August 2026. 

Program Committee 

Executive Committee

Leslie Marshall, SFPE Foundation, Co-Chair, WUI Summit Program Committee 

Arnaud Trouvé, University of Maryland, College Park, Co-Chair, WUI Summit Program Committee 

*Fernando Raffan-Montoya, University of Maryland, College Park, Co-Chair Climate Change Working Group

*Andres Valencia-Correa, University of Canterbury, Co-Chair Climate Change Working Group

Max Kinateder, National Research Council Canada, Co-Chair WUI Working Group

*Pascale Vacca, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Co-Chair WUI Working Group

Pedro Reszka, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Co-Chair WUI Working Group

Daniel Gorham, Fire Safety Research Institute, SFPE Foundation FEMA Advisory Panel Representative

Government

Brian Metzger, United States Fire Administration 

Erik Link, National Institute of Standards and Technology

Mike Torkleson, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Rahul Wadhwani, United States Forest Service

Robert Salvador, Public Services and Procurement Canada

Code, Research, and National Organizations

Amanda Kimball, Fire Protection Research Foundation

Birgitte Messerschmidt, National Fire Protection Association 

Jason Smart, American Wood Council

Justice Jones, International Code Council

Paul Sincaglia, International Code Council

Roberta Rincon, Society of Women Engineers/Women of Color in Engineering Collaborative

Roland Moreau, United Engineering Foundation

Shamim Rashid-Sumar, National Ready Mixed Concrete Association

Fire Service

Dori Booth, Hawaii State Fire Marshall

George Braga, Federal District Fire Department

James Gillespie, Newport Beach Fire Department

Jerry McAdams, MC Fire, LLC

Michaela Campbell, Congressional Fire Services Institute

Universities

Alex Filkov, The University of Melbourne

Ann Jeffers, University of Michigan

Bingyu Zhao, Technical University of Vienna

Domingos Xavier Viegas, University of Coimbra

Elizabeth Weckman, University of Waterloo 

Elsa Pastor, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya

Erica Fischer, Oregon State University

Erica Kuligowski, RMIT University

Guillermo Rein, Imperial College and Editor-In-Chief, Fire Technology 

James Urban, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Mariyana Aida, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Maryam Zamanialaei, University of California, Berkeley

Michael Gollner, University of California, Berkeley

Miguel Almeida, University of Coimbra

Ruggiero Lovreglio, Massey University

Serdar Selamet, Stanford University

William Koffel, University of Maryland, College Park 

Xinyan Huang, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Practicing Fire Engineers

Babak Bahrani, Emerson Graham + Associates

Biswadeep Ghosh, Jensen Hughes Canada Ltd

Charles Ochs, Hanford Tank Waste Operations & Closure

Claudia Pereira Dias, Action Modelers

Dolores Orozco, Fire Cause Analysis

Hamed Salehi, Holmes

Jonathan Hodges, Jensen Hughes

Mackenzie Roach, Arup

Michael Currie, Verisk - Fire Underwriters Survey

Nadia Mofidi, Halliwell Fire Research

Nate Wittasek, Simpson Gumpertz & Heger, Inc.

Qianru Guo, Simpson Gumpertz & Heger, Inc.

Rob Campbell, CampFire Protection Engineering

Sara Alexandre, SOLIDCOLUMN

Vyto Babrauskas, Fire Science & Technology

*With special thanks to the Program Committee members who also led the development of the Climate Change White Paper and WUI White Paper: Fernando Raffan-Montoya and Andres Valencia-Correa (Co-Chairs, Climate Change Working Group) and Pascale Vacca (Co-Chair, WUI Working Group).