Dr Deastra is a Lecturer in Structural Engineering with a track record spanning both academia and industry. His research lies in structural dynamics and earthquake engineering, with particular emphasis on vibration control systems, seismic isolation, and performance-based earthquake-resistant design. His work aims to advance the understanding and enhancement of structural resilience under extreme and multi-hazard loading conditions, including seismic and dynamic excitations.

Prior to joining the University of Brighton, Dr Deastra was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellow at Politecnico di Torino. He secured this prestigious and highly competitive fellowship and received €188,590 in funding to lead the VIBRATIONCLEAR project. The project focused on the development of inerter-based vibrating barriers for the seismic protection of clustered building systems. The project concluded on 31 January 2026, following his appointment to a permanent lectureship at University of Brighton.

He was also a JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow at Tohoku University, Japan, where he developed a novel class of inerter-based dampers and validated their performance through shaking table experiments on scaled structural models. Prior to this, he held a postdoctoral research position at ETH Zurich under the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship, following an earlier postdoctoral appointment at Dong-A University in South Korea.

Dr Deastra is interested in supervising PhD students and postdoctoral researchers, in the broad field of structural dynamics and earthquake engineering. Dr Deastra's research interests include vibration analysis, structural control and monitoring, seismic design and assessment, and the development of innovative mitigation strategies for resilient infrastructure. He is particularly interested in projects that integrate theoretical, computational, and experimental approaches, especially those addressing real-world challenges related to the performance and safety of structures under dynamic loading. He also welcomes applications from candidates seeking to apply for prestigious postdoctoral fellowships (e.g., MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships, Newton International Fellowship, etc.) under his supervision.