Dr. Bernal is Chief Scientific Officer at INGENIAR. He is an expert in catastrophe risk modeling, with more than 15 years of experience in the development of CAT risk models for earthquakes, tsunamis, tropical cyclones, droughts, floods, volcanic eruptions, landslides, wildfires, storms, extreme temperatures, and pandemics, that are currently implemented in the CAPRA ROBOT software platform, of which he is the main developer. He led the development of the Global Risk Model for the UNDRR GAR 13, GAR 15, and GAR 17 ATLAS reports, covering more than 190 countries.

His interests are related to the extension of CAT risk assessment from a purely probabilistic view to a random sets approach, allowing the analytical incorporation of background trends and variables that exhibit deep uncertainty, like climate change, and expressing risk through imprecise probability metrics. Furthermore, he is Professor of Earthquake Engineering and Disaster Risk Modeling at the National University of Colombia.