A University of Canterbury researcher who studies why earthquake shaking varies by location has received the Natural Hazards Commission Toka Tū Ake’s (NHC) Ivan Skinner Award for 2026 – the 20th time the commission has made the annual grant. The recognition comes roughly six months after the NHC co-funded the release of new seismic design guidance aimed at reducing the gap between building survival and building usability after a major earthquake, a distinction that has material consequences for insurance claims.
Dr. Robin Lee (pictured centre) holds a senior lectureship at the University of Canterbury, where his work centres on how subsurface geology – the composition and arrangement of soil and rock layers – determines the degree to which earthquake shaking is intensified at different sites. The question has direct engineering relevance: two buildings constructed to the same code standard can experience very different levels of ground motion depending on what lies beneath them. His PhD thesis produced enough material for three separate journal publications. He subsequently received a Rutherford postdoctoral fellowship from the Royal Society New Zealand, one of six awarded across all academic disciplines each year.
That foundational research fed into two documents engineers now use to determine construction requirements: the 2022 update to New Zealand’s National Seismic Hazard Model and the TS 1170.5 design standard. Lee will direct the $15,000 prize toward further work on how seismic waves behave beneath Wellington, a city where varied and complex geology makes ground motion difficult to predict. “Improving our ability to model these effects will help us better estimate future earthquake hazards, which in turn supports more reliable engineering design and stronger resilience planning for the region,” Lee said.
The NHC established the Ivan Skinner Award in 2006 to honour Dr. Ivan Skinner, who served as the commission’s research director and made foundational contributions to seismic engineering. The award is open to early-career researchers and is administered in partnership with the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering (NZSEE). NHC head of research Natalie Balfour said past recipients have used the recognition to advance their careers and expand their professional networks. “Past winners have said that the award has opened doors and boosted their confidence. It’s helped recipients secure funding and international collaborations and given them opportunities to share their work with a wider audience,” Balfour said.
The award’s alumni reflect a range of specialisations within earthquake engineering. Prof. Brendon Bradley, a 2012 recipient, co-founded QuakeCoRE, New Zealand’s national earthquake resilience research platform. Prof. Alessandro Palermo, who won in 2013, oversaw the construction of a low-damage rocking bridge in Christchurch. Prof. Geoffrey Rodgers, the 2014 recipient, developed energy-dissipation devices that were installed in Christchurch rebuild projects, including Tūranga.
In December 2025, the NHC and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) co-funded the release of Volumes Two and Three of the Low Damage Seismic Design (LDSD) series, developed by the Structural Engineering Society of New Zealand (SESOC). Volume One was published in 2024. The three-volume series is voluntary and sits above the minimum requirements of the Building Code. The guidance was developed in response to a well-documented pattern from New Zealand’s recent earthquake history. Buildings that met code requirements in both Canterbury and Kaikōura protected occupants from death or serious injury but sustained damage that rendered them unusable for extended periods.
“Canterbury and Kaikōura showed us that many buildings delivered on life safety but were too damaged to use, meaning that families were out of homes, and schools and businesses were closed for months. In Canterbury, widespread demolition and slow recovery added environmental and financial costs to the social disruption. Kaikōura reinforced that even modern, code-compliant buildings can be unusable for months,” said Prof. Ken Elwood, joint chief engineer (resilient buildings) at MBIE and NHC. Volume Two of the LDSD series introduces a performance framework that lets building owners define specific recovery targets – for example, the period within which a building should be safe to reoccupy following a defined seismic event. Volume Three provides the technical design criteria for both structural and non-structural components needed to meet those targets.
Lee’s research and the LDSD guidance sit at different points on the same chain: seismic science informs hazard models, hazard models inform design standards, and design standards inform what buildings actually get built. The NHC funds activity at each stage, using the Ivan Skinner Award to keep early-career researchers working on problems that eventually shape how New Zealand’s built environment responds to earthquakes.
Lee’s Wellington project – modelling how ground conditions amplify shaking across the capital – could, over time, contribute to more granular hazard data for a city where earthquake risk is concentrated and the consequences of a major event would fall heavily on both government and private insurers. “For me, it is recognition that my research is contributing to both scientific understanding and engineering practice in New Zealand. It is also very motivating and encourages me to keep pushing forward with work that can have practical benefits for improving earthquake resilience,” Lee said.
