Professor Raimondo Betti received his Laurea degree magna cum laude in Civil Engineering from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” in 1985 and his Master of Science in Structural Mechanics (1988) and PhD in Civil Engineering (1991) from the University of Southern California.  In the fall of 1991, Dr. Betti joined the Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at Columbia University as an Assistant Professor and has been there since, being promoted to Associate Professor (1998) and to Full Professor (2002). He is currently the Chair of the Department.  As a professor at Columbia, he has received in 1995 the National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award and the 1997 Foreign Specialist Award from the Public Work Research Institute in Japan.  In addition, he received, in 1996, the Distinguished Teaching Award from the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia and the Great Teacher Award in 2000.  His research interests focus on monitoring the structural health of buildings and bridges, with particular emphasis on rapid damage assessment through dynamic structural response measurements, on vibration-based identification of reliable structural models, and on deterioration mechanisms in structures. His research work has been funded by National Science Foundation, California Department of Transportation, NYC DOT, and Federal Highway Administration.  He is the author ofthree book chapters,over 50journal and 100 conferencepublications and has been invited to many national and international conferences.  He served as Chair and Vice Chair of the Dynamics Committee of ASCE Engineering Mechanics and as Associate Editor of the ASCE Journal of Engineering Mechanics.  He is currently an active member of the Dynamics and Structural Health Monitoring Committees of ASCE.  Dr. Betti serves also as technical advisor for bridge dynamics and monitoring to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York.