Dewberry, a privately held professional services firm, announced that Siamak Esfandiary, Ph.D., PE, has been hired as a senior associate in the firm’s Fairfax, Virginia, office.

Esfandiary has nearly 20 years of experience in water resources engineering and flood risk management. He previously worked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for 11 years, where he worked closely with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) headquarters, risk management center, and hydrologic engineering center on a variety of flood risk management topics, including strategies for implementing the National Levee Safety Program. Esfandiary also advised the National Dam Safety program manager on technical and programmatic issues and worked closely with the National Dam Safety review board. He was the technical lead for FEMA’s levee analysis and mapping procedures, and wrote FEMA’s procedure memorandum No.63, “Guidance for Reviewing Levee Accreditation Submittals.” Esfandiary was an integral member of FEMA’s Risk Rating 2.0 team, where he designed and proposed the Probabilistic Flood Risk Assessment.

Esfandiary was a member and the chairman of the subcommittee on hydrology that operates under the U.S. Geological Survey’s advisory committee on water information, which published Bulletin 17C, “Guidelines for Determining Flood Flow Frequency.” He managed two National Academies of Sciences’ studies for FEMA, “Framing the Challenge of Urban Flooding in the United States,” that was published in 2019; and “Levees and the National Flood Insurance Program: Improving Policies and Practices,” in 2013. He also represented FEMA as a contributing author in developing a comprehensive resource document titled “International Levee Handbook,” in collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security, USACE, the National Committee on Levee Safety, and European countries.

Prior to working for FEMA, Esfandiary served as a project manager at Dewberry from 2004-2008, where he managed numerous flood studies across the U.S.

“We are excited to welcome Siamak back to Dewberry,” says Dewberry Senior Vice President Jerry Sparks, PE, CFM. “He brings extensive knowledge of FEMA’s flood programs and has worked with a variety of federal agencies, and we’re glad to have his expertise for our clients.”

Esfandiary obtained his doctorate (2001) and his master’s degree in civil engineering (1997) from the City University of New York. He earned his bachelor’s degree in irrigation engineering from the Isfahan University of Technology (1996), and is a member of the American Water Works Association and the Association of State Floodplain Managers.