Senior Research Engineer 1

Catastrophe Risk Solutions at Verisk (formerly AIR Worldwide) is the scientific leader and most respected provider of risk modeling software and consulting services. It founded the catastrophe modeling industry in 1987 and today models the risk from natural catastrophes, terrorism, and pandemic outbreaks in 90 countries. Our Atmospheric Perils Vulnerability team develops, maintains, and researches the relationship between atmospheric hazards—such as hurricanes, severe convective storms, and winter storms—and the built environment. We are a diverse group of engineers and research scientists with backgrounds in wind, flood, earthquake, statistics, and data science, focused on building cutting-edge vulnerability models and shaping the future of risk management. Team members bring their unique backgrounds and expertise in civil engineering and statistics to model extreme catastrophic events (e.g., hurricanes, tornadoes, storm surge, and flood) and assess building performance during these events, while working with advanced technologies, global clients, and some of the most innovative minds in the industry.

The evolving nature of research at Verisk creates unique, challenging problems that spark innovation and create opportunities for growth. A successful candidate will enjoy applying sound engineering principles and strong problem-solving skills to these problems in civil/structural engineering and risk assessment. We are looking for someone who is highly motivated, detail-oriented, well-organized, and team-oriented, who can conduct high-quality self-directed research and has outstanding written and verbal communication skills.

The Senior Research Engineer is responsible for developing, enhancing, and supporting the engineering and vulnerability components of Verisk’s atmospheric peril portfolio risk analysis models for regions worldwide. Covered perils include straight-line wind from tropical cyclones, severe convective storms, and winter storms, as well as hail, snow, and freezing temperatures. The role focuses on quantifying how these perils affect the built environment, including physical damage that results in monetary loss to buildings and infrastructure, contents, and loss of use (downtime). You will work closely with structural engineers, meteorologists, hydrologists, hydraulic engineers, statisticians, and specialists in the financial application of probabilistic risk assessment. You should be comfortable working both independently and as part of a team, and presenting and explaining results to internal stakeholders and external clients.

As a member of our Atmospheric Perils Vulnerability Team, your day-to-day responsibilities will include the following:

• Acquire, synthesize, and analyze building inventory, industry insured loss, and insurance claims data to understand building vulnerability to atmospheric hazards in multiple regions worldwide

• Learn and work with a variety of proprietary Verisk datasets and integrate them into Verisk’s extreme event models

• Conduct analysis and research to develop vulnerability functions and monetary loss curves for structural and non-structural building and infrastructure components subjected to hurricane winds, downbursts or straight-line wind, tornado, hail, and snow hazards in regions worldwide

• Implement research into Verisk’s portfolio risk analysis models, including programming loss simulation code and analysis tools, and validating probabilistic risk assessments

• Use GIS and similar tools for data visualization and analysis

• Perform real-time and virtual building damage assessments during and after significant natural catastrophes

• Prepare and present work at internal staff and external client meetings, and write technical content for internal and external publications and client-facing documentation

Must Haves:

Non-negotiable skills/experience the candidate needs to succeed from day one.

• Ph.D. or M.S. in Civil Engineering with an emphasis in Structural Engineering or Building Sciences

• 2+ years of Catastrophe Modeling or damage estimation experience

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills

• Experience in performance-based design, probabilistic and stochastic risk assessment and modeling, and reliability theory as applied to structural engineering

• Experience with C#, Python, or similar programming languages (e.g., C/C++, R, MATLAB), or experience implementing AI-assisted coding and familiarity with coding; proficiency in Microsoft Office

• Experience in data analytics, including analyzing, interpreting, and visualizing large datasets to support research and modeling

• Strong organizational and documentation skills

Nice-to-Haves:

Skills that are a plus but can be learned on the job — don't let these gate an otherwise strong candidate.

• Knowledge of GIS applications (e.g., ArcGIS) and SQL Server

• Experience in claims analysis, risk assessment, or forensic engineering