Dr. Bernal is Chief Scientific Officer at INGENIAR. He is an expert in catastrophe risk modeling, with more than 15 years of experience in the development of CAT risk models for earthquakes, tsunami, tropical cyclones, droughts, floods, volcanic eruptions, landslides, wildfires, storms, extreme temperatures, and pandemic, that are currently implemented in the CAPRA ROBOT software platform, of which he is its main developer. He led the development of the Global Risk Model for the UNDRR GAR 13, GAR 15, and GAR 17 ATLAS reports, covering more than 190 countries. His current interests are related to the extension of CAT risk assessment from a purely probabilistic view to a random sets approach, allowing the analytical incorporation of background trends and variables that exhibit deep uncertainty, like climate change, and expressing risk through imprecise probability metrics. He is also interested in the creation of exposure information models based on digital twins of buildings and infrastructure, green insurance models for CAT risk of crops and livestock systems, and loss quantification on ecosystems due to wildfires and water scarcity.

Dr. Bernal is a Professor of Earthquake Engineering and Disaster Risk Modeling at the School of Engineering of the National University of Colombia, in Bogotá. He has authored multiple publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals and book chapters.

Dr. Bernal graduated as a Civil and Mechanical Engineer at Los Andes University (Bogotá, Colombia), and holds a Master's degree in Earthquake Engineering from the same university, and a Ph.D. in Structural Analysis from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Barcelona, Spain).