Craig E. Taylor, 68, an expert in multihazard risk management who shaped new directions in catastrophe modeling and risk simulation, particularly for earthquakes, died on May 31 in Torrance, Calif., after a brief undisclosed illness, the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) confirms.
A research professor at the University of Southern California and long-time consultant to insurers and federal agencies, Taylor was a founding member and former chairman of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Council on Disaster Risk Management, and long-time editor its Natural Hazards Review journal.
“Craig Taylor had a long and distinguished career ... as an expert in catastrophe risk modeling,” says colleague Ron Eguchi, CEO of California risk consultant ImageCat Inc.
He says Taylor "helped carve out a new direction in [catastrophe] modeling, one which strived for more comprehensive simulation of risk and uncertainty." Eguchi adds that recent efforts built on earlier work "in the early 1990s that introduced the notion of incremental real-time risk assessment and risk-based pricing in underwriting.”
At the time of his death, Taylor was an organizer of a symposium to be held in Liverpool, England, on natural hazard risk management. The mid-July event now is dedicated in his honor, says ASCE.
A celebration of Taylor's life will be held on July 12 at 10:00 am at the South Coast Botanic Garden in Palos Verdes, Calif.
For more information, contact Ron Eguchi (rte@imagecatinc.com) or Charlie Huyck (ckh@imagecatinc.com).
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