Dr. Flavia De Luca is Associate Professor of Structural and Earthquake Engineering at University of Bristol. She joined the University of Bristol in September 2014, her expertise is within the field of structural and earthquake engineering, with specific focus to Reinforced Concrete frame structures. She is part of the Earthquake and Geotechnical Engineering Research Group.

Dr De Luca achieved her PhD in Seismic Risk at University of Naples Federico II under the supervision of Prof Gaetano Manfredi with the thesis Records, capacity curve fits and reinforced concrete damage states within a Performance Based Earthquake Engineering Framework on 18th January 2012. 

She continued her research as post doctoral fellow at the Department of Structures for Engineering and Architecture of University of Naples Federico II, from February 2012 to August 2014.

Her PhD and post doctoral research experience was immediately characterized by multiple collaborations with different researchers at University of Naples and from other relevant institutions in Europe. During her PhD she coauthored publications with Dr. Iunio Iervolino (Univ. of Naples), Dr. Dimitrios Vamvatsikos (Univ. of Cyprus), Prof Edoardo Cosenza (Univ. of Naples), Dr. Francesca Pacor (INGV Milan) and Dr. Gabriele Ameri (INGV Milan), and Dr. Gerardo Verderame, who became her postdoctoral supervisor.

During the PhD program, Dr. De Luca worked as a visiting PhD student at the University of Cyprus for six months (January - June 2010), collaborating with Dr. Dimitrios Vamvatsikos. This collaboration resulted in a paper on the accuracy of piecewise linear fits for nonlinear static analyses in the high impact journal Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics. She collaborated with Dr. Francesca Pacor and Dr. Gabriele Ameri, seismologist from the Italian Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) in Milan, within the RELUIS research programme in cooperation with Italian National Civil Protection. 

Right after the discussion of her PhD thesis, Dr. De Luca was invited speaker for the Colloquia on Recent Advances in Applied Mechanics and Strength of Materials, at University of Innsbruck, in March 2012 (seminar title: Hazard analysis and ground motion: PSHA and record selection issues).

In July 2013, Dr. De Luca's expertise on seismic performances of Reinforced Concrete structures resulted in the invitation as first contributor to the chapter Seismic Vulnerability Assessment for RC Structures in the Encyclopedia of Earthquake Engineering (edited by Michael Beer, Edoardo Patelli, Ioannis Kougioumtzoglou and Siu-Kui Au, Springer.

During the research experience in Italy, from 2008 to 2014, Dr. De Luca took part to post-earthquake in-field campaigns (e.g., L'Aquila 2009) as shown by part of her publications.