Keynote Speakers
Pierre-Yves Hicher, École centrale de Nantes, France
pierre-yves.hicher@ec-nantes.fr
Presentation: Modeling the impact of internal soil erosion on engineering structures and granular slopes in the context of climate change
Biography: Pierre-Yves HICHER is a distinguished researcher in the field of geomechanics. His main contribution has been to study the mechanical behaviour of soils and granular materials. He has notably contributed a methodology for connecting macroscopic properties to the microstructure of heterogeneous materials and has advanced knowledge of material properties under complex loading paths through original experimental procedures and parameter identification methods under inverse analysis techniques. He has proposed homogenization techniques adapted to disordered granular materials in the modelling of their mechanical behaviour. These techniques have been applied to the analysis of instability and collapse in granular materials and of the size effect in coarse granular materials, which has been useful to the modelling of rockfill dams. Recently, his work concerns the impact of internal erosion on the stability of hydraulic works (dams, dykes, levees) in the context of climate change. He is the author and co-author of more than 150 papers in international peer-reviewed journals and has published several books on his research topics.
He is currently Professor Emeritus at Ecole Centrale de Nantes in France.
Buddhima Indraratna, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
Buddhima.Indraratna@uts.edu.au
Presentation: Conceptual and Computational Perspectives of Sustainable Rail Geotechnics
Biography: Prof Buddhima Indraratna is a Civil Engineering graduate from Imperial College, London. Since his PhD at University of Alberta in Canada in 1987. He is currently, Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering and the Director of Transport Research Centre, at the University of Technology Sydney. He is also an Honorary Professor at the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand, Indian Institute of Technology in Assam, and Harbin Institute of Technology, Beijing Jiaotong University and Shanghai University of Science and Technology in China. Buddhima is a Fellow of the prestigious Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (FTSE), Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia (FIEAust), Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (FASCE), Fellow of Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (FAusIMM), and a Fellow of the Geological Society of UK (FGS). He is a Chartered Professional Engineer of Australia, United Kingdom, and Sri Lanka. On Australia Day in January 2024, he was inducted as Member of the Order of Australia for his outstanding contributions to Ground Improvement and Transportation Geotechnics.
John Carter, The University of Newcastle, Australia
john.carter@newcastle.edu.au
Presentation: Reflections on elastoplastic constitutive modelling
Biography: John Carter is a civil engineering graduate of the University of Sydney, Australia. He is an Emeritus Professor and former Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of Engineering at the University of Newcastle, in New South Wales. He is also a former director of the geotechnical consultancy, Advanced Geomechanics (now Fugro AG), registered in Perth, Western Australia. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, the Royal Society of NSW, Engineers Australia, and the Australian Institute of Building. He is currently President of the International Association for Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics (IACMAG). He was Chair of the Organising Committee for the 20th International Conference of ISSMGE, held in Sydney in May 2022.
Daichao Sheng, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
Daichao.Sheng@uts.edu.au
Presentation: Frost heave in dry clean sand – Challenge to cold region geotechnical design
Biography: Professor Daichao Sheng is a Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering and the Head of School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of Technology Sydney (UTS) since 2019. Before his current role, he was a Professor of Geomechanics at the University of Newcastle during 1997-2019. He also holds a conjoint position at Central South University in China since 2013. His research interest spans computational geomechanics, unsaturated soils, transport geotechnics and environmental geotechnics. Prof Sheng is an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (FTSE), and a Fellow of Institute of Engineers in Australia (FIEAust).
Wei Wu, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) Vienna, Austria
wei.wu@boku.ac.at
Presentation: Recent advances in modelling dense granular flow
Biography: Prof. Wu is director of the Institute of Geotechnical Engineering at BOKU University, Vienna, Austria. He received his BEng from Wuhan University in 1982, MSc from Xian University of Technology, China in 1985 and PhD from Karlsruhe University, Germany in 1992. Afterwards, Dr. Wu joined Lahmeyer International Ltd in Frankfurt, Germany as a senior engineer. In 2002, Dr. Wu moved to Zurich to join the Swiss consulting firm Electrowatt Infra Ltd as a project manager. During his time at Frankfurt and Zurich, Dr. Wu worked on some major civil engineering projects of the world. In 2003, he moved to Vienna to take over the chair professor at BOKU University. Prof. Wu is the founding editor and editor-in-chief of Acta Geotechnica and the Springer Series for Geomechanics and Geoengineering. He has coordinated some large research projects funded by the European Commission. In 2024, Prof. Wu received the prestigious Advanced Grant from the European Research Council.
Phoon Kok Kwang, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore
kkphoon@sutd.edu.sg
Presentation: Where geodata meets machine learning
Biography: PHOON Kok-Kwang is President, Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), as well as Cheng Tsang Man Chair Professor. He is a fellow of the Academy of Engineering Singapore (SAEng) and the Singapore National Academy of Science (SNAS). In addition to being Treasurer of Academy of Engineering Singapore, he is also a member of the Committee of Government Scientific Advisors and the Singapore-Tianjin Economic and Trade Council. Prof Phoon also sits on the Board of the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore. He obtained his BEng and MEng from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and his PhD from Cornell University. Prior to joining SUTD, Prof Phoon was Senior Vice-Provost (Academic Affairs) at NUS. He has also served as the Deputy Chief Scientific Advisor (DCSA) to the National Research Foundation, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore. Prof Phoon is a world leader in the development of statistical and machine learning methods for geotechnical engineering. He has edited 6 books and authored 2 books: Model Uncertainties in Foundation Design (CRC Press, 2021) and Bayesian Compressive Sensing for Site Characterization (CRC Press, 2025). He was bestowed the ASCE Norman Medal twice in 2005 and 2020, the Humboldt Research Award in 2017, the Harry Poulos Award in 2023, and the Alfredo Ang Award in 2024 among other accolades. Prof Phoon, who is the Founding Editor of Georisk and Founding Editor-in-chief of Geodata and AI, is a Professional Engineer in Singapore and an ASEAN Chartered Professional Engineer.
Shui-Long Shen, Shantou University, China/RMIT University, Australia
shensl@stu.edu.cn
Presentation: AI in shield tunnelling via both data-driven and physical-informed modelling
Biography: Professor Shui-long Shen is current the Dean of the College of Engineering, Shantou University and is a Distinguished Professor (leading talent), Guangdong Province, China. He was a Professor and Department Chairman at Shanghai Jiao Tong University during 2003-2019. He also holds a adjunct position at RMIT University in China since 2019. Prof Shen is an elected Non-EU Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences (EurASc), and a Fellow member of European Academy of Sciences and Arts (EASA). His research interest spans artificial intelligence in shield tunnelling, smart maintenance of urban underground infrastructural system, smart techniques on disaster preventions for urban underground space. He published/edited six books and published more than 460 technical papers in Journals. Prof Shen is listed in World’s Top 0.05% by ScholarGPS (https://scholargps.com/) within recent 5 years. Prof. Shen, who is the Founding Editor and Editor-in-chief of of Smart Construction and Sustainable Cities.
Richard J. Bathurst, Ph.D., FRSC, FEIC, FCAE, FCSCE
bathurst-r@rmc.ca
Presentation: The case for reliability-based design of MSE walls
Biography: Dr. Bathurst is Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering at the Royal Military College of Canada where he has taught since 1980. He also holds a cross-appointment with the Civil Engineering Department at Queen's University. Dr. Bathurst is Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed technical journal Geosynthetics International, which is an official journal of the International Geosynthetics Society and published by the Institution of Civil Engineers in the UK, Editor-in-Chief of the IACMAG International Journal of Geomechanics published by the ASCE, and Associate Editor of Geotextiles and Geomembranes (Elsevier). Dr. Bathurst is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and is the ASCE Geo-Institute Cross-USA Lecturer for 2024-25. In 2021, he was awarded the “Bathurst Reinforcement Lecture of the International Geosynthetics Society” to be delivered at the International Conference on Geosynthetics held every four years. In the same year he received the ASCE Geo-Institute Thomas A. Middlebrooks Award for best paper published in the ASCE Journal of the Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering. He was recently awarded the 2024 Julian C. Smith Medal of the Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC) "For achievement in the development of Canada".
Ronaldo I. Borja, Stanford University, USA
borja@stanford.edu
Presentation:Multiplicative elastoplasticity for transversely isotropic solids in the finite deformation range
Biography: Ronaldo I. Borja works in theoretical and computational geomechanics, geotechnical engineering, and geosciences. His research includes the development of mathematical and computational frameworks for multiscale and multi-physical processes in geomechanics and geosciences. He is the author of a textbook entitled Plasticity Modeling and Computation published by Springer and serves as editor of two journals in his field: Acta Geotechnica and the International Journal for Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanics. He is the recipient of the 2016 Maurice A. Biot Medal of the American Society of Civil Engineers for his work in computational poromechanics, the inaugural recipient of the 2025 Mary F. Wheeler Medal of the US Association for Computational Mechanics for promoting and advancing research in earth, environmental, and energy sciences, and the recipient of the 2025 Yushan Fellow Award from the Ministry of Education in Taiwan to conduct research on land subsidence induced by groundwater withdrawal.
Lidija Zdravkovic, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
l.zdravkovic@imperial.ac.uk
Presentation:Numerical modelling approach for thermo-active structures
Biography: Lidija Zdravkovic is Professor of Computational Geomechanics at Imperial College London, where she has been an academic staff member since 1996, after completing a PhD degree at the same university. Her research integrates soil characterisation and numerical modelling to aid the sustainable design of geotechnical infrastructure, focusing on offshore renewables, geothermal energy, climate change impact, transport and flood infrastructure, earth dams and tailings, and nuclear waste disposal. She has published over 250 technical papers and has received awards from the British Geotechnical Association and the Institution of Civil Engineers, and the 2019 Imperial College President’s Medal for Excellence in Education. She is a UK core member of ISSMGE TC103 for Numerical Analysis and a corresponding member of TC221 for Tailings and Mine Wastes. Lidija has consulted on several major UK infrastructure projects and is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers. She delivered the Rankine Lecture in 2024 and is currently Editor-in-Chief of Géotechnique.
Xia-Ting Feng, Northeastern University, China
xtfeng@whrsm.ac.cn
Presentation:Large Models of Hard Rock Mechanics in Deep Engineering
Biography: Prof. Xia-Ting Feng received his PhD at Northeastern University of Technology (now Northeastern University), China in 1992 and then took the positions of lecturer, associate professor and professor at the same university. He joined Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 1998 as Professor of Hundred Talent Program of CAS and as Deputy Director in Charge and Director during 2001-2005. He Served as Director Director of State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering from 2007 to 2018. He works at Northeastern University, China, as President since January 2021. He is President of International Society for Rock Mechanics (ISRM) Commission on Design Methodology, and President of Chinese Society for Rock Mechanics and Engineering. He was the past President of ISRM during 2011-2015 and the past President of Federation of International Geoengineering Societies (FedIGS) during 2018-2022. He is Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering. His research interests cover rock mechanics for deep rock engineering. He published more than 200 papers and English books “Rock Engineering Design” and “Rock Engineering Risk” with Prof. John Hudson.
In 2019, Prof. Feng was elected as a member of Chinese Academy of Engineering.
Steve WaiChing Sun, Columbia University, USA
wsun@columbia.edu
Presentation:Computational poromechanics for frozen soils
Biography: Dr. Steve Sun is an associate professor of civil engineering and engineering mechanics at Columbia University. He received his PhD from Northwestern in 2011. From 2011 to 2013, He worked as a research engineer at Sandia National Laboratories. Sun’s research focuses on computational mechanics and scientific machine learning for material modeling. He received several awards, including the Walter Huber Prize and da Vinci Award from ASCE, the John Argyris Award from IACM, and the Zienkiewicz Numerical Methods in Engineering Prize from the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE). He has served as an editor of the International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering since April 2025.
Jianfu Shao, University of Lille, France
jianfu.shaouniv-lille.fr
Presentation:Multiscale poromechanics of clay rocks in the framework of geological disposal of nuclear waste
Biography: Jianfu Shao is currently an exceptional-class professor at University of Lille. He has brought original contributions to theoretical development, experimental investigation and numerical modeling in the field of geomechanics, in particular on multi-scale approaches for thermo-hydromechanical problems. His research works are widely applied to various engineering problems such as geological disposal of radioactive waste, sequestration of CO2, storage of hydrogen, geothermal exploitation. He is an associated editor of two major international journals on rock mechanics and a member of editorial board for five other top international journals. He is the recipient of the Maurice A. Biot Medal (2022) for his seminal contributions to understanding the role of microstructure to macroscopic behavior of porous materials.