Technical Advisor and Chief Technology Officer, Strata Geosystems (India) Pvt Ltd, Mumbai, India

Topic: A Tryst with Geosynthetics

Shri. Shahrokh Bagli graduated from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and continued there for his postgraduation. He is a Fellow, Indian Geotechnical Society and Fellow, Institution of Engineers (India). He has over 48 years’ experience in geotechnical and civil engineering, of which the past ten years have been entirely devoted to the field of geosynthetics. At Strata Geosystems (India), he has been instrumental in streamlining the designs of geosynthetics and has brought to the fore, innovative applications of geogrids and geocells. Such innovations include vertical containment for hazardous waste landfill, check dam constructed from geocells, use of mechanistic-empirical methods for the design of flexible pavements reinforced with geocells, and the use of two-layer theory for the analysis of a load bearing system incorporating geocells. Shahrokh’s expertise in geosynthetics is well recognised and he is a member of two prestigious Committees of the Indian Roads Congress - for flexible pavements, slopes and embankments, and for bridges. He is also a member of the TX-30 and TX-33 Committees of the Bureau of Indian Standards. Besides these, he has been appointed to the Executive Committee of the Initiative for Geotechnical Research and Innovative Practice (iGrip), a programme of Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar for the advancement of geotechnology and geosynthetics for various engineering applications. He is a member of the Board of Studies of the Mukesh Patel School of Technology Management and Engineering of the NMIMS, an autonomous university for management studies. He has 45 technical publications to his credit. Shahrokh’s initiatives have been appreciated by the engineering and societal fraternities and has, in the recent years, been awarded: 1. Lifetime Achievement Award for 2015-16 of the Delhi Chapter of the Indian Geotechnical Society; 2. The Mancherji Edalji Joshi Memorial Trust Outstanding Contribution Award 2017 for Excellence in Geosynthetics and Environmental Preservation; 3. Appreciation Award for contributions to the Indian Chapter of the International Geosynthetics Society in 2019.

 President ASCE & Senior Vice President, AECOM, USA

Topic:

Dr. Kancheepuram N. Gunalan (Guna) is proud to be a civil engineer and is passionate about enhancing the quality of life for communities around the world through this profession and continuously advancing the careers of his fellow civil engineers. He is committed to ethics and ethical behavior in all aspects of life, and was awarded the 2016 ASCE Professional Practice Ethics and Leadership award for his dedication to this topic. He learned more about how to encourage ethical behavior in others by serving as a member of the National Institute of Engineering Ethics. He took the opportunity to serve as the Chair of the Geotechnical Group of the Utah Section and was fortunate enough to get involved in some major projects. Guna served as the Technical Support Manager on the $1.529 billion I-15 Reconstruction Project that received an ASCE OPAL award. He served as Utah Section President during the 150th anniversary of ASCE and volunteered for the 2002 Winter Olympics. Guna rose to serve ASCE at both the regional and national levels, and chaired the 2014 Global Engineering Conference in Panama City, Panama during the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Panama Canal that was held in conjunction with the Engineers Without Borders Conference. Guna has worked on major engineering projects all over the world – experiences that provide him with a unique global perspective on the engineering industry and the challenges faced by civil engineers.

 William Scott Professor and Distinguished James McGill Professor, McGill University, Canada

Topic: THM Aspects of Poroelastic and Poroelasto-Plastic Geomaterals

Dr. Selvadurai is recognized for contributions to continuum mechanics, theoretical, computational and experimental geomechanics and applied mathematics for which he has received the Humboldt Senior Scientist Award, The Max Planck Prize in the Engineering Sciences, The Killam Prize, The Biot Medal, The Reissner Medal and The Desai Medal. His research includes the mechanics of elastic media undergoing large deformations, fracture mechanics, micromechanics of inclusions and defects, poroelasticity, coupled THM processes in deformable media, mechanics of inhomogeneous media, interfaces in geomechanics, fragmentation of brittle geomaterials, transport in porous media and mechanics of geosynthetics subjected to chemical exposure. He has published extensively in archival journals ( http://www.mcgill.ca/civil/people/selvadurai/list-research-publications). He is the author or co-author of texts on Elastic Analysis of Soil-Foundation Interaction (Elsevier, 1979), Elasticity and Geomechanics (with R.O. Davis) (CUP, 1996), Partial Differential Equations in Mechanics Vols. 1&2 (Springer, 2000); Plasticity and Geomechanics (with R.O. Davis) (CUP, 2002), Transport in Porous Media (with Y. Ichikawa) (Springer 2012) and Thermo-Poroelasticity and Geomechanics (with A.P. Suvorov) (CUP, 2016). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, The Canadian Academy of Engineering, The Engineering Institute of Canada, The American Academy of Mechanics, The Canadian Society for Civil Engineering and The Institute for Mathematics and its Applications (UK). He is a Chartered Engineer and a Chartered Mathematician.

 Founding Director, ARC’s Industrial Transformation Training Centre for Advancing Rail Infrastructure (ITTC-Rail); Director, Transport Research Centre, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Technology Sydney, Australia

Topic: Internal Instability and Fluidization of Subgrade Soil under Cyclic Loading

Prof. Buddhima Indraratna is a world authority on the application of fundamental and applied geotechnical research to the development of railway infrastructure, and he is passionate about training young engineers to become masters of railroad design and construction. He currently leads numerous projects worth over $ 1.5 million per year. A consultant to various geotechnical and rail organisations around the world, he is also among the most highly cited researchers internationally. He has published over 850 papers, including 12 books and about 450 journal papers, and has delivered over 80 invited keynote papers on all continents. His outstanding contributions to Australian Transport Geotechnics have been recognised by several prestigious awards, including the Business-Higher Education Round Table (BHIRT) award hosted by the Australian Commonwealth (2009), and the Engineers Australia Transport Medal (2011). In 2009, he delivered the prestigious EH Davis Memorial Lecture of Australian Geomechanics Society for distinguished contributions to theory and practice of geomechanics. Internationally, his significant contributions are reflected by many awards, for instance, 1st Ralph Proctor Lecture (2016) and 4th Louis Menard Lecture (2018) of the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, the Thomas Telford Premium by the UK’s Institution of Civil Engineers (2015), Robert Quigley Award from the Canadian Geotechnical Society (2012), and the Medal of Excellence for life-time contributions from the International Association of Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics (2017).

 Donald H. McLaughlin Chair in Mineral Engineering Chancellor's Professor, University of California, Berkeley, USA

Topic: Distributed Sensing and Monitoring of Geotechnical Structures

Prof. Kenichi Soga is the Donald H. McLaughlin Chair in Mineral Engineering and a Chancellor’s Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He obtained his BEng and MEng from Kyoto University in Japan and PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. He was Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Cambridge before joining UC Berkeley in 2016. He has published more than 400 journal and conference papers and is the co-author of “Fundamentals of Soil Behavior, 3rd edition” with Professor James K Mitchell. He is a Fellow of the UK Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) and American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). He is the recipient of several awards including George Stephenson Medal and Telford Gold Medal from ICE and Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize from ASCE.

 University Scholar & Distinguished Researcher, Director, Geotechnical & Geoenvironmental Engineering Laboratory & Sustainable Engineering Research Laboratory, University of Illinois Chicago, USA

Topic: In-Situ Electrobioremediation of Polluted Sites: Laboratory and Field Investigations

Dr. Krishna Reddy is University Scholar, Distinguished Researcher, and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Director of Sustainable Engineering Research Laboratory, and Director of the Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering Laboratory at the University of Illinois, Chicago, USA. Dr. Reddy received Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA. He received gold medals for being first in B.E. Civil Engineering from Osmania University, Hyderabad and M.E. Civil Engineering (Geotechnical Engineering) from Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee. Prior to joining the University of Illinois, Dr. Reddy worked as Civil Engineer and Project Manager for over 3 years in industry and worked on many civil and environmental engineering projects. Dr. Reddy is a registered Professional Civil Engineer and an Envision Sustainability Professional. Dr. Reddy’s teaching, research and consulting experience includes: (1) geotechnical investigations and infrastructure, (2) environmental pollution control and remediation technologies, (3) waste management and beneficial reuse, and (4) sustainable/resilient engineering. Dr. Reddy is the author of four major books, including two widely used textbooks: (1) Geoenvironmental Engineering: Site Remediation, Waste Containment, and Emerging Waste Management Technologies, and (2) Sustainable Engineering: Drivers, Metrics, Tools, and Applications. He is also author of 259 journal papers, 226 full conference papers, 22 book chapters, and 21 edited books/conference proceedings (with h-index of 65 and number of citations over 14,000). Dr. Reddy has given over 200 invited presentations in the USA and 20 other countries. Dr. Reddy has received several awards for excellence in research and teaching, including ASCE Wesley W. Horner Award, ASTM Hogentogler Award, UIC Distinguished Researcher Award, University of Illinois Scholar Award, and University of Illinois Award for Excellence in Teaching. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Diplomate of Geotechnical Engineering, and Board Certified Environmental Engineer.

 Executive Director of AECOM & Adjunct Professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology & University of Hong Kong

Topic: Learnings in Underground Metro Design and Construction

Dr. John Endicott is an AECOM Fellow and an Executive Director of AECOM’s geotechnical and tunnel business in Asia and the Pacific Region. He has specialized in geotechnical engineering since 1970 initially in U.K. and has been working in South East Asia, based in Hong Kong, since 1975. From 1975, he led the geotechnical group for Maunsell with extensive involvement in design of underground railway stations and tunnels, foundations, major roads including the Aberdeen Tunnel, and other tunnels and for New Town Development at Shatin, and Tai Po. He worked on a number of Committees, Working CT10 and CT11 Parties, and Review Panels relating to Regulations for foundations, slope stability and site investigation. In 1986, he joined Dames & Moore and was responsible the S.E. Asian Region. He led the design of ground engineering works for some 15 underground railway stations and 12 railway tunnels in Taipei. He provided specialist consulting services for 12 underground stations in Singapore, 9 underground stations and associated tunnels in Bangkok, 6 underground stations and tunnels in Delhi, 6 underground stations and tunnels at Kolkata, and 27 underground stations and tunnels at Chennai. Recent work has included the Arbitration for Stage 1 deep sewer tunnels, for Piling in karst at Ma On Shan for HKHA, for several cases with short piles, and for the collapse of the Nicoll Highway in Singapore. Currently he is working on HATS 2A Sewage Tunnels and Lai Chi Kok Drainage Tunnel. He is currently the Senior Consultant for ground engineering throughout Asia and Pacific, for AECOM

 Distinguished University Professor, Western University, Canada & Editor-in-Chief Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering

Topic: Response of Helical Piles To Dynamic Loading

Dr. El Naggar is a Distinguished University Professor of Western University, Canada. He is Editor-In-Chief of Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering and past Associate Editor of the Canadian Geotechnical Journal. He published more than 450 technical papers/book chapters on foundations, soil-structure interaction and geotechnical earthquake engineering; and consulted on major projects worldwide. He is the main developer of software DYNA6 used worldwide for design of foundations for dynamic loads. He received numerous awards including: Geosynthetics, Stermac, Meyerhof, Canadian Geotechnical Colloquium Speaker, Western University Distinguished Professorship, Faculty Scholar Award, Outstanding Teaching, and Research Excellence Awards as well as the 2015 Ontario Professional Engineers Medal for Engineering Research & Development. He is an elected Fellow of Canadian Academy of Engineers, Engineering Institute of Canada and the American Society for Civil Engineers.

 Professor of Geotechnical Engineering, University of Napoli Federico II, Napoly, ITALY

Topic: Innovative Liquefaction Mitigation Techniques

Prof. Flora completed Master degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Napoli Federico II (Italy); PhD in Geotechnical Engineering at the Sapienza University of Rome (Italy). Visiting researcher at IIS (University of Tokyo, Japan, 1994) and visiting professor at the University of Rio Grande do Sul (Porto Alegre, Brazil, 2008). Secretary of TC301 (preservation of historic sites) of ISSMGE. Italian representative in TC211 (ground improvement) of ISSMGE. Member of the editorial boards of the Italian Geotechnical Journal and of the Built Heritage and Geotechnics Volumes. Author of about 200 papers, some of which have been awarded as best papers, and coauthor of 2 books on jet grouting (CRC press). Coeditor of different volumes on Geotechnics and Heritage. In 2022, he will be the third Kerisel Lecturer (honorary lecture of TC301). Invited, keynote or SoA speaker to a number of international conferences. Collector of a number of competitive Italian and European funding grants. Coordinator of the European Raw Materials Commitment “Rose”. Invited Expert Member of the “European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Raw Materials”. Research interests: ground improvement, liquefaction risk mitigation, geotechnical seismic isolation systems, mechanics of coarse soils, preservation of historic sites.

 President ASCE, Spencer J. Buchanan Chair Professor, University Distinguished Professor, Regents Fellow, Director, National Geotechnical Experimentation Site, Texas A&M University, USA

Topic: Geotechnical Risk: What is Acceptable?

Professor Jean-Louis Briaud is a Distinguished Professor and Holder of the Spencer J. Buchanan Chair in the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering at Texas A&M University, a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and a Professional Engineer. He received his Bachelor degree in France in 1972 and his Ph.D. degree from the University of Ottawa in Canada in 1979. His expertise is in foundation engineering and more generally geotechnical engineering. He has served as President of the Association of Geotechnical Engineering Professors, President of the Geo-Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers, President of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, President of the Federation of International Geoengineering Societies and is President Elect of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Among other awards, he has received the ASCE Ralph Peck Award from the USA, the CGS Geoffrey Meyerhof Foundation Engineering Award from Canada, the Honorable Aitalyev Medal from Kazakhstan, and is a member of the National Academy of Natural Sciences in Russia. Over the last 30 years, Dr. Briaud has conducted about 10 million dollars of research most of which was on foundations and retaining walls. He has supervised 50 PhD students and 90 Master students. He is the author of a book entitled Geotechnical Engineering and one entitled The Pressuremeter; he has published about 300 articles and reports. He enjoys tennis, soccer, and rugby, and plays jazz piano at the amateur level.

 Professor of the Department of Civil Engineering, University of Ottawa, Canada

Topic: Use of Artifical Intelligence Methods as a Tool in the Prediction of the Soil Water Characterstic Curves

Dr. Sai Vanapalli is a professor of the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Ottawa, Canada. Since receiving his PhD in 1994, he has been actively involved in research and teaching activities related to the mechanics of unsaturated soils and its application in geotechnical engineering. Dr. Vanapalli has authored or co-authored more than 400 research papers and has presented 25 keynote addresses in several national and international conferences. Throughout his research career, he has received and been nominated for several awards. Most notably, he received the Stermac Award in 2010, awarded for outstanding service contributions to the Canadian Geotechnical Society, and the George S. Glinski Award for Canada. Excellence in Research in 2015 from the University of Ottawa. He is TC6 (Unsaturated Soils) committee member representing Canada. Dr. Vanapalli's research studies focus on the design and analysis of geotechnical structures such as pavements, shallow and deep foundations, slopes, soil nails and retaining walls. Dr. Vanapalli takes pride in his teaching and serving as a mentor for many of his students who have successful careers in academia, research and industry. A dozen of his former PhD students and Post-docs currently serve as professors in universities across Canada and around the world.

 Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies – Intelligent & Resilient Ocean Engineering, Deputy Director of Southampton Marine & Maritime Institute, Professor of Offshore Geotechnical Engineering, University of Southampton, United Kingdom

Topic: A New Philosophy for Offshore Geotechnical Design; Theory and Practice

Susan is a civil engineer by background, graduating from University of London (1994). She was awarded her PhD from the University of Southampton (1998), then joined the Engineering Department at Cambridge University and then the Centre for Offshore Foundation Systems at the University of Western Australia. Susan re-joined the University of Southampton in 2017 as Professor of Offshore Geotechnical Engineering, and was appointed Deputy Director of the Southampton Marine & Maritime Instutute in 2018. Susan holds a Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies in Intelligent & Resilient Ocean Engineering, which drives activities to create a step-change in ocean engineering design to support responsible, sustainable and economic ocean development.

Susan disseminates her research outcomes through scholarly journal and conference papers, through social and mainstream media, and through freeware web apps (www.webappsforengineers.com); she has co-authored the text books Offshore Geotechnical Engineering, and Intermediate Offshore Foundations and co-edited the Proceedings of the inaugural and second International Symposia on Frontiers in Offshore Geotechnics.

Susan is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia, Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers (UK) and Convenor of the International Standardisation Organisation committee responsible for developing industry standards for marine soil investigation and offshore geotechnical design.

 Retired Chief General Manager (Civil) - Head - Geotechnical Section, Institute of Engineering and Ocean Technology (IEOT), Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC)

Topic: CPT Application in Offshore Soil Investigations – Equipment, Deployment and Data Interpretation

Er R.K. Ghanekar is a post graduate from University of Roorkee in 1983. He has been working in ONGC on offshore geotechnics, for shallow as well as deep waters, since 1988. He retired in 2020 as the Head of Geotechnical Section of Institute of Engineering and Ocean technology (IEOT) – one of the premier R&D institutes of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. (ONGC). He has more than 40 publications in national and international forums and is a member of TP1, WG 10 of ISO’s TC 67 for Marine Soil Investigation and a member of TC 209 of ISSMGE. He is also one of the editors of "Advances in Offshore Geotechnics (Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 92)", Proceedings of First Indian Symposium on Offshore Geotechnics (ISOG 2019), ISBN 978-981-15-6831-2, Springer. His current interests include site investigation and foundation design for deep and ultra deep water oil and gas development and, offshore wind energy converters.

 Professor, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore & Editor-in-Chief Indian Geotechnical Journal

Topic: Morphological Perspectives to Quantify and Mitigate Liquefaction in Sands

Prof. Madhavi Latha is a Professor at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. She obtained her Ph.D. degree from Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India. Prior to joining Indian Institute of Science in 2003, she was an Assistant Professor at Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati for a year. Her areas of specializations include geocell reinforcement, soil-geosynthetic interactions, image-based characterizations. seismic response of reinforced soil structures and rock engineering. She has so far supervised 15 Ph.D. students. She has published more than 150 technical papers in international and national journals and conferences. Prof. Madhavi Latha is the primary geotechnical consultant for the world’s highest railway bridge being constructed in Jammu, India. She received ‘Teacher Extraordinaire’ award from the Builders Association of India and several national and international best paper awards. She is a member of ISSMGE Technical Committees on “Soil structure interaction and retaining walls”, “Geo-mechanics from micro to macro” and the Technical Committee on “Soil reinforcement” of the International Geosynthetics Society. She is currently the Editor-in-chief of Indian Geotechnical Journal published by Springer and an Associate editor of Geotextiles and Geomembranes published by Elsevier. She is the first recepient of the Best Woman Geotechnical Engineer award of the Indian Geotechnical Society in 2020. She has received the SERB POWER Fellowship in 2021. She has delivered the first T K Gopalakrishnan Nair Memorial Annual Lecture organized by the IGS Student Chapter of LBS Institute of Technology for Women, Thiruvananthapuram in June 2021.

 Editor-in-Chief, Int. Journal of Geosynthetics and Ground Engineering, and Founding Research Group Leader (Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering), School of Engineering, Edith Cowan University, Australia

Topic: Wraparound Reinforcement Technique for Strenghtening the Shallow Foundations – A Sustainable Approach

Professor Sanjay Kumar Shukla is Founding Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Geosynthetics and Ground Engineering. He is Founding Research Group Leader (Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental) at School of Engineering, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia. He holds Distinguished Professorship at seven universiteis, inclding Delhi Technological University, Delhi. He has over 25 years of experience in teaching, research and consultancy in the field of Civil/Geotechnical Engineering. He has authored more than 270 research articles, including over 170 refereed journal publications. He is also author/editor of 23 books, including 7 textbooks, and 22 book chapters. In 2020/2021, his two ICE textbooks have been ranked #1 by Amazon. Shukla’s generalized expressions for seismic active thrust (2015) and seismic passive resistance (2013) are routinely used by practicing engineers worldwide. Shukla’s wrapround reinforcement technique, developed during 2007-2008, is a well-established sustaibale ground improvement technique. He has been honoured with several awards, including the most prestigious IGS Award 2018 from International Geosynthetics Society (IGS), USA. He serves on the editorial boards of nine international journals. He is a fellow of Engineers Australia, a life fellow of Institution of Engineers (India) and Indian Geotechnical Society, a member of American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and several other professional bodies.

 International Manager of Maccaferri’s Geosynthetics Business Unit & Elected member of the Board of Directors of the prestigious Geosynthetic Institute (GSI)

Topic: New Design Frontiers with Geosynthetics in Geotechnical and Erosion Control Applications

Moreno Scotto, PE Graduated in Civil Engineering from University of Pisa (Italy) in 1989. After a period of employment as Project Engineer Manager by Snamprogetti SpA he became an independent consultant for geosynthetics and environmental applications. Till 1996 he works as Technical-Sale Manager of Italian Companies active as distributors of prestigious Geosynthetics companies (Exxon Geopolymers, Naue, Huesker, SGS-GSE Group). In 1996 he joins the Maccaferri Group with main assignment of developing the "geosynthetic and environmental business”. Moreno is an active member of the Italian IGS chapter (member of the directive board from 2004 to 2012) and Italian delegate to CEN and CEN-TC188 to write the EN14475 (guideline on execution of special geotechnical works on Soil Reinforcement). In 2010 become International Manager of the Geosynthetics Business Unit of Maccaferri Group; in 2012 the Coastal & Dewatering-BU is merged to the GSY-BU. In 2013 is appointed as President of Maccaferri USA branch; by the end of 2015 come back to the Corporate to be focused on the global GSY market development. International member of the board of directors of GSI (USA) for 2015-2017 and 2017-2019. In 2018 the MSE Walls-BU is incorporated in the GSY-BU and Moreno is now heading the Combined Global Business Unit.