Welcome to IACMAG 2025

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: 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.