Alex H. Barbat was born in Brasov, Romania, on March 5, 1947. He is married with Eugenia and has a son, Gabriel, born in 1992. He completed a civil engineering degree in June 1970 at the Technical University of Iasi, TUIasi, Romania. While working as an assistant professor in the same university, he started doctoral studies, completing a Doctor Degree in Engineering in May 1978 (speciality Structural Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering). On July 1978 he became Lecturer with tenure at the Structural Mechanics Department of TUIasi, Romania. He held this position until August 1979 when he moved to Spain. The degree in civil engineering and the doctor degree completed in Romania were not officially recognized in Spain at that time. Therefore he completed, in 1986, the degree of Ingeniero de Caminos Canales y Puertos (Civil Engineering) at the Civil Engineering School of the Technical University of Catalonia, UPC, in Barcelona, Spain and in 1989 he became Doctor Ingeniero de Caminos, Canales y Puertos (Ph.D. in Civil Engineering). During the period 1980-1985 he worked in different companies of Barcelona (INDUS, DPI and ESPES) as a professional engineer, mostly dedicated to consultancy in the field of earthquake engineering. During the same period, he was part time Adjunct Professor at UPC, teaching a course on Earthquake Engineering. He was Professor of Structural Mechanics and of Earthquake Engineering at the Technical University of Catalonia, UPC-BarcelonaTech and now he is Professor Emeritus. His current research fields are: evaluation of damage in reinforced concrete and masonry buildings; evaluation of seismic vulnerability and risk of structures; seismic risk evaluation at country, regional and local level. He supervised doctoral theses, published books and articles in these fields. He is also senior researcher at the International Centere of Numerical Methods in Engineering, CIMNE, Barcelona, Spain, where he collaborated in research projects in the framework of RTD programs of the European Commission, most of them as main researcher; in various projects funded by the Spanish government; and in many consultancy contracts with Spanish and international companies or institutions. He was the President of the Spanish Association of Earthquake Engineering 2004-2016 and is head Risk Assessment Group (RAG) of CIMNE. He received three Honorary Doctorates: Doctor Honoris Causa by the by the “Ovidius” University, Constantza, Romania (March 2011), by the Technical University “Gh. Asachi” of Iasi, Romania (November 2011) and by the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania (November 2013).