NH
Natural Hazards

Simona Colombelli

Associate Professor at the Department of Physics, of the University of Naples Federico II. Her research deals with both the physics of the rupture process and the development of innovative methodologies and technologies for Earthquake Early Warning applications. She is the PI of an ERC-Starting Grant Research Project, (FORESEEING - FrOm RupturE proceSs to Earthquake Early WarnING, https://www.foreseeing.eu/ ), recently funded by the European Research Council. The major goal of her research is to investigate the physics of the earthquake rupture process from its nucleation, to propagation and arrest, to fully understand the mechanism of occurrence of seismic events and check the existence of physics-based models relating real-time observed quantities and source parameters. At European level, she also leads the activities on Earthquake Early Warning within the TRANSFORM2 project (https://www.transform2-project.eu/), funded in 2024 by Europe, and aimed at developing EEWS having the European Near-Fault Observatories (https://www.epos-eu.org/tcs/near-fault-observatories) as backbone infrastructures.

From Seismic Signals to Safer Trains: Italy’s First Earthquake Early Warning System for High-Speed Railways

and March 16, 2026
From Seismic Signals to Safer Trains: Italy’s First Earthquake Early Warning System for High-Speed Railways
Image generated using ChatGPT 5.4

Earthquakes remain among the most disruptive natural hazards worldwide, capable of causing sudden loss of life, severe economic damage, and long-lasting societal impacts. One of the most effective tools developed in recent decades to mitigate these effects is Earthquake Early Warning (EEW), a real-time monitoring strategy that exploits a fundamental physical property of earthquakes: seismic waves ...[Read More]