Mehmet Çelebi received his BSc degree in Civil Engineering in 1964 from Middle East Technical University [METU] (Ankara, Turkey), MSc, degree in Civil Engineering in 1965 from Stanford University and PhD degree in Civil/Structural Engineering in 1968 from Mc Gill University (Montreal, Canada). He taught in METU as Assistant and Associate Professor (1969-1977), as tenured Professor in San Francisco State University (1981-84), He also worked in industry as Principal Engineer and Specialist in Engineering Decision Analyses Co (Palo Alto, CA) and Bechtel Power Corporation (San Francisco, CA) between 1977-1981). He joined USGS in 1984 as a research Civil Engineer where he was assigned, championed and led in efforts in seismic structural monitoring of structures and related research. In addition, as a USGS researcher and/or EERI post-earthquake studies team-member, he participated in numerous national and international post-earthquake reconnaissance studies as well as field work. These include but are not limited to: 1985 Valparaiso (Chile), 1985 Michoacan (Mexico), 1987 Whittier-Narrows (CA), 1989 Loma Prieata (CA), 1992 Erzincan Turkey), 1994 Northridge (CA), 1995 Kobe (Japan), 1999 Izmit (Turkey), 2010 Maule (Chile), 2011 Tohoku (Japan), 2016 Cushing (OK) earthquakes and participated in related research and technical reports.
In 2000-2006 period, utilizing GPS units and accelerometers with real-time response measurements, his publications include pioneering studies Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) using threshold drift ratios in establishing occupationabilty of buildings subjected to severe shaking events. Since 2010, Dr. Çelebi has concentrated on analyses of recorded responses of tall buildings during strong and ambient shaking. Such studies has contributed to data bases that establish recommendations for (a) minimum seismic monitoring required for tall buildings, (b) dynamic characteristics such as fundamental structural periods and critical damping percentages, (c) analyses methods to extract building specific characteristics and (d) assessing damage condition of the buildings from recorded data. He has co-edited a recent book on Seismic Structural Health Monitoring and published more than 230 technical papers, books, reports, conference papers.