Gregory Kopp

Professor G.A. Kopp received a B.Sc. from the University of Manitoba in 1989, a M.Eng. from McMaster University in 1991 and a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 1995, all in Mechanical Engineering. Between 1995 and 1997 he held a NSERC Post-doctoral Fellowship in Spain. He returned to Canada in the summer of 1997 to an appointment at Western. Since 2019 he has been the ImpactWX Chair in Severe Storms Engineering at Western.

Dr. Kopp’s expertise and research projects relate to mitigating damage to structures during extreme wind storms such as tornadoes and hurricanes. He is the co-founder of the Northern Tornadoes Project and the lead researcher for the ‘3 Little Pigs’ project. His research includes model-scale wind tunnel and full-scale component test methods, field surveys of damage caused by wind storms, building aerodynamics, wind effects on building component and cladding systems, and tornado and thunderstorm wind storms.

Dr. Kopp is active on many building code and design standard committees including the National Building Code of Canada, the ASCE 7 wind loads sub-committee, and SCA S520 for the design of wood-from houses to extreme wind storms. He is Chair of the ASCE 49 Standard “Wind Tunnel Testing for Buildings and Other Structures”.