April 26, 2012

PhD candidate, Hardik Gajjar, presents paper on Economic Resilliency for Marine Terminals at the SAME 2012 Critical Infrastructure Symposium

Hardik Gajjar, Ocean Engineering, PhD candidate and Maritime Security Research Assistant within the National Center for Secure and Resilient Maritime Commerce (CSR), was selected to present his paper entitled Development of economic resiliency assessment framework for marine terminals, at the Society of American Military Engineers' (SAME) Critical Infrastructure Symposium on April 24, 2012, in Arlington,VA.  The theme of this year's Symposium was "Full Spectrum Resilience".

The Critical Infrastructure Symposium is a collaborative learning community comprised of students, educators, practitioners and government officials all engaged in developing the next generation of critical infrastructure protection and resilience leadership, technologies and strategies. The Symposium focuses on the integration of policy, engineering and asset protection with economics, insurance, and security to form a coherent whole.

Gajjar has focused his research on developing a framework for the assessment of resiliency benefits in terms of economics for marine terminals. This framework aims to assist supply network stakeholders to create investment strategies for the allocation of available finances for supply chain security, and to retain business continuity during or immediately following disruptions. Gajjar's paper is slated to be published in the Homeland Security Review.

Click here to review a copy of the SAME 2012 Critical Infrastructure Symposium program: http://www.tisp.org/tisp/file/2012-CIS-Program-SM.pdf

Hardik Gajjar's dissertation advisor is Dr. Thomas Wakeman, Research Professor, Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering (CEOE) Department, Stevens Institute of Technology, and his dissertation committee members include Drs. Barry Bunin (CEOE), Thomas Herrington (CEOE), Jan Klein (Howe School), and Hady Salloum, Director of Advanced Research Programs.

Gajjar's other publications and accomplishments include; Development of freight platform resiliency framework – a systems approach, Conference of Transportation Research Group (TRG), 2011, Bengaluru, India (Paper presentation) and Evaluation of Business Competitiveness and Capital Investments in Port Security during the Planning and Preliminary Design Phase of Container Terminals”, PORTS 2010, Jacksonville, FL. (Poster presentation).

Hardik has also engaged in summer internships at Parsons Brinckerhoff, where he worked on preparing strategic port master plans and port capacity utilization and container handling equipment productivity, and at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, where he provided operational support at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal and coordination with PANYNJ management, operations and engineering staff.