National institute of chemistry, slovenia

Prof. Blaž Likozar is a head of the Department of Catalysis and Chemical Reaction Engineering at the National Institute of Chemistry (NIC), leading the programme “Chemical Reaction Engineering”, as well as numerous research projects (15 H2020 / 50 in Horizon Europe alone). His expertise lies (among others) in heterogeneous catalysis materials, modelling, simulation and optimization of process fluid mechanics, transport phenomena and chemical kinetics. He worked at the University of Delaware in 2014–2015 as a Fulbright Program researcher. He has authored >400 articles, was cited >10000 times, having a h-index of 61. He is also involved in many industrial projects, amongst others, with TotalEnergies, Evonik Industries, UPM, Novartis, Carbon Recycling International… He is a recipient of Pregl and Zois awards.

Ontario Tech University, Canada

Ohio State University, USA

Westlake University, China

Prof Li graduated from Tsinghua University with a Bachelor of Engineering (Environmental) degree and received his PhD from University of Western Australia. He held various academic positions at Deakin University, University of Edinburgh and University of Queensland before joining Westlake University as Chair Professor of Environmental Hydrology in 2018. Prof Li’s principal research interests lie in mathematical modelling of complex environmental systems across different scales. His research addresses fundamental aspects of ocean-land interactions and has contributed to understanding of coastal groundwater-dependent systems, and associated flow and mass transport processes. Prof Li has led more than 20 large scientific research projects and published over 350 research papers in international journals. He is currently a co-editor of Water Science and Engineering and a member of the editorial board of Advances in Water Resources.

Princeton University, USA

Peter Jaffé joined the faculty of Princeton University in 1985 and is the William L. Knapp ’47 Professor of Civil Engineering, in Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He has four concurrent appointments at Princeton University with the High Meadows Environmental Institute, the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, the Omen-Darling Bioengineering Institute, and the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials. He is also a member of the NIEHS Center for Environmental Health Sciences at the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, at Rutgers. He served as chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering from 1999 to 2005. He is an Elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. His research has focused extensively on biological and chemical pollutant dynamics in porous media; simulation and analysis at the watershed scale of soil contamination processes and nutrient cycling; nitrogen cycling at the watershed scale; and dynamics of trace metals and radionuclides in sediments, wetland soils, and groundwater. Areas of current emphasis include biological defluorination of per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS), ranging from gaining insights into the defluorination mechanism to applications such as bioremediation of aqueous firefighting foam (AFFF) impacted sites. His work is also focusing on a novel biological process for anaerobic ammonium oxidation (Feammox), focusing on gaining fundamental insight into this process, as well as quantifying field-scale transformations of ammonium due to this process, and applications for wastewater treatment.

University of Maryland, USA

Dr. Cui is a civil engineer specializing in infrastructure management and economics. Immediately prior to joining UMD, he was Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Alabama. Prior to his academic appointment, he was a consultant for China Fortune Investment, providing project feasibility analysis. Prior to that, he worked as a field engineer, team leader, and project manager for SINOPEC. He also served as an estimator in the Kaifeng-Luoyang Expressway project funded by the World Bank. Dr. Cui is an active researcher and has conducted research projects supported by state DOTs, CII, construction industry, etc. His recent research focuses on project delivery and financing, front end planning, contract reliability, and carbon projects.

Curtin University, Australia

Professor Mohamed Shahin is the Geomechanics and Pavements Lead at Curtin University in Australia. He holds a BSc and MSc from Cairo University (Egypt) and a PhD from the University of Adelaide (Australia). He has over 25 years of experience in academia and industry with research interests that include Computational Geomechanics, Ground Improvement and Transportation Geotechnics. Professor Shahin serves as an Editor and Associate Editor for several international journals and is a Board Member of multiple global societies. He is an Elected Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers and Engineers Australia. Professor Shahin is recognised as a leading expert listed among the top 1% of Highly Cited Researchers in Engineering by Web of Science, the top 2% of World Scientists by Stanford University, the top 0.5% of Worldwide Scholars by ScholarGPS and one of Oceania's top 100 Civil Engineering Scientists by the AD Scientific Index. His numerous prestigious awards include the International Association of Advanced Materials (IAAM) Scientist Medal (Sweden, 2023), the Fredlund Most Highly Cited Paper Award (Canadian Science Publishing, 2018), the Editor’s Choice Paper Award (Canadian Geotechnical Journal, 2016) and the R. M. Quigley Best Paper Award (Canadian Geotechnical Society, 2013).

Brunel University, UK

Hamid Bahai received his PhD degree in 1993 in Computational Mechanics from Queen Mary College, University of London. Between 1993 and 1995 he worked as a Senior Research Engineer at T&N Technology where he was involved in research and development work on a number of projects for the automotive and aerospace industries. This was followed by a period at Halliburton Inc during which time he carried out design and analysis of a number of major offshore structures. In 1996 he moved to the aerospace industry by joining Astrium, an aerospace subsidiary of European Aeronautics Defence and Space company, where as a senior scientist, he played a leading role in conducting design, mathematical modelling and computational analysis of Euro3000 space craft structures and Ariane launcher / spacecraft adapter. It was during this period that he was made a Fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers for his technical contributions and services to the scientific and engineering communities. In 1998 he returned to academia and joined Brunel University as a lecturer. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2004, Reader in 2005 and Professor in Computational Mechanics in 2009. He has led a number of research projects covering a wide range of topics in the area of Computational Mechanics and has published over 140 papers on various themes in the field. In 2014 Hamid Bahai was appointed as the Head of the newly formed Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering at Brunel University London and in 2019 was appointed as the Director of Brunel’s Institute of Materials & Manufacturing. Hamid Bahai’s many theoretical and applied contributions include the development of a new type of non-linear shallow shell strain based finite element and a novel inverse eigenvalue formulation for optimising the vibratory behaviour of structures. His current research interests include development of non-linear finite element formulations and algorithms for fluid-solid interaction and multi-scale continuum-particle numerical simulations. He acted as principal investigator and the chair of government and industrial jointly funded consortiums to work on a high performance computational fluid-solid coupled structural analysis projects. The output of a number of analytical models developed by Hamid Bahai and his co-workers have now become international benchmarks in the scientific community and industry. He has conducted consulting work in the field of structural integrity for many UK and International companies and has given invited talks and courses the world over on various topics in structural computational mechanics. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Computational Mechanics.

ETH Zurich, Swizerland

Ioannis Anastasopoulos has been Full Professor of Geotechnical Engineering at ETH Zurich since 2016. He specializes in geotechnical earthquake engineering and soil–structure interaction, combining numerical with experimental methods. His academic degrees include a PhD from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), an MSc from Purdue University, and a Civil Engineering Diploma from NTUA. His research interests include resilient seismic design and preparedness, innovative seismic hazard mitigation techniques, sustainable retrofit of bridge foundations, improved methods for sustainable geotechnical construction, faulting and its effects on infrastructure, site effects and slope stabilization, foundations for renewable energy, tsunamis and their effects on coastal infrastructure, scouring of bridge foundations, soil liquefaction and structure–soil–structure interaction. He is the inaugural recipient of the Young Researcher Award of the ISSMGE in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering, and the winner of the 2012 Shamsher Prakash Research Award. He has been involved as a consultant in a variety of projects of significance in Europe, but also in the US and the Middle East. His consulting work ranges from the design of pile-rafts of tall buildings/towers, special seismic design for new and retrofit of existing bridges, retaining walls, metro stations and tunnels, to harbour quay walls, and special design against faulting–induced deformation. He is National Delegate-Expert for Switzerland for the 2nd generation of Eurocode 7 and member of the SIA 267 Commission on Geotechnical Design.

University of Notre Dame, Italy

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, HK

Drexel University, USA

Dr. Jin Wen is the Associate Dean for Research and Innovation of the College of Engineering, and a Professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at Drexel University. She is a Fellow of American Society of Heating Refrigeration and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) and currently the Vice Chair of ASHRAE’s Research Administration Committee (RAC), which oversees and coordinates all ASHRAE research activities. She is the Task Leader for International Energy Agency (IEA)’s Energy in Buildings and Communities (EBC) Annex 81 (Data-Driven Smart Buildings) Task C (Applications). Dr. Wen was selected as the U.S. Fulbright Scholar for 2019-2020 (Sweden). Dr. Wen has more than twenty-years experiences in the smart building field, firstly as an application engineer working for Johnson Controls Inc. and later as a researcher in the areas of automated fault detection and diagnosis, building-to-grid integration, model predictive control, regional energy modeling, and occupant behavior simulation. Her work has been funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Institute of Standard Technology, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Homeland Security, and ASHRAE. She has published 70+ journal papers and has 5000+ citation (Google Scholar).

Chaoyang University of Technology, Taiwan

Ming-Gin Lee is currently a distinguished professor in the Department of Construction and Civil Engineering at Chaoyang University of Technology. His research focuses on the study, education, and service activities in the field of sustainable infrastructure and related materials.

University of Notre Dame, USA

Julio Cesar Perez-Hernandez has been an Associate Professor at the University of Notre Dame’s School of Architecture since 2017. He previously taught in this institution as Visiting Professor during the Fall Semester of 2012. An accomplished leader, visionary, historian, and published author, he is a world-class expert in Cuban architecture and urbanism. He has drafted “A Master Plan for 21st Century Havana”, a comprehensive urban plan registered at the Library of Congress in 2006, among other urban plans. As an academic, he has lectured and taught in the most prestigious institutions of the United States, Canada, Europe, Costa Rica, Cuba, and Bermuda. He is the founding Principal and Creative Director of Caesar Studio | Architects & Planners, a successful international practice ranging from architecture to urban planning and design with a focus on excellence. In this role, he has designed and built projects in the United States, Cuba, Spain, and Panama, some of them recipients of several awards. Julio Cesar Perez-Hernandez is also the President of both Cuban Chapters of I.N.T.B.A.U. and C.E.U. He has led and organized International Charrettes on Urban Planning and Urban Design annually since 2007, as well as numerous professional Study Tours in Cuba along the past 20 years. He is the author of the books Inside Cuba (2004) and Inside Havana (2011), both published by Taschen, and two forthcoming books to be published by Andelani Press (Puerto Rico). He has also penned numerous professional articles that have been published in international journals. His academic and professional work has appeared in several international exhibits and publications.

McMaster University, Canada

Prof. S. Pietruszczak research interests have focused mainly on the areas on Geomechanics (soils and rocks), Structural Mechanics (masonry, concrete, reinforced composites) as well as Biomechanics (bone tissue mechanics). He has written over 190 technical papers on these topics. He is also the author of a monograph on ‘Fundamentals of Plasticity in Geomechanics’ and co-author of Proceedings of 12 different International Symposia that he organized (in collaboration with Prof. G.N. Pande, University of Swansea, U.K.) in various European/North American cities. He was the North American Editor of Intern. Journal 'Computers and Geotechnics', Elsevier Science Ltd. (1989-2011). He is presently on Editorial Board of several other International Journals and serves on a number of Advisory Boards in Europe and North America.

ETS s.r.l, Italy

Federico Foria is a civil engineer from Naples, Italy, specializing in tunnelling. He leads the Geotechnics, Geology, and Hydraulics Department and the R&D at ETS in Milan. Recognized for his innovation and sustainability efforts, he was named EFCA's best Future Leader in Europe in 2022 and RockMass Technologies' top innovator in 2024. He actively participates in national and international committees on tunnelling. Federico also serves as the official representative of ITA in the ITA Sustainability Committee and is the Animateur of the Italian Tunnelling Society's WG6 on Maintenance and Repairs of Underground Structures. His work continues to shape the future of sustainable tunnelling practices globally.

University of Zagreb, Croatia

Associate Professor Maja-Marija Nahod is an esteemed academic at the University of Zagreb's Faculty of Civil Engineering. Her expertise includes productivity and digitization in civil engineering, energy efficiency and standardizations. She has led and participated in numerous domestic and international projects, including the Horizon 2020 project (Concerted Action EPBD V), active involvement in the Union for the Mediterranean, and as a consultant expert in projects related to public administration and the civil engineering industry. Her scientific and professional interests are primarily focused on agility, productivity, transformations, sustainability, and project management in the construction industry. Additionally, she has a keen interest in the public sector and administration. With over 80 research and professional publications, Dr. Nahod is a globally certified project manager, agile construction coach, certified engineer, energy certifier, court expert for construction and real estate valuations, BIM coordinator, and mediator. Her contributions to the field have been invaluable thus far.

New Asia Construction and Development Corporation, Taiwan

University of Virginia, USA

Somayeh Asadi is currently a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Virginia. Prior to joining UVA, she was an Associate Professor with the Department of Architectural Engineering at Pennsylvania State University. She received M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in engineering science with an emphasis on construction engineering from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA. She leads a dynamic and diverse research team to transform smart infrastructure systems through research and education. Her research group's work focuses on smart buildings and cities, Occupant behavior and health, net-zero carbon built environment, resilient and adaptive built environment, food–energy–water-society nexus, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Beyond her research, Dr. Asadi is truly committed to education and mentorship, fostering the intellectual development of both undergraduate and graduate students. She is the past chair of the ASCE Global Computing Committee. She also served as the advisor of the National Electrical Contractor Association (NECA) student chapter for 8 years.

The University of Alabama, USA

Nasim Uddin, Ph.D., PE, F.ASCE has led over 50 research projects, and his major research sponsors include NSF, FHWA, US DOT, ALDOT, and UTCA. Dr. Uddin is the author/co-author of seven books, over 200 papers, served as principal or co-principal investigator on research projects whose cumulative funding exceeds $15 million, and directed about 60 Doctoral and Master's theses based on the sponsored research projects. He also mentored many postdoc fellows and junior faculty members. In recognition of his exceptional research, mentoring and teaching track record, he was honored with the President's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2023, Graduate School Dean's Excellence in Mentorship Award in 2017, Dean’s Excellent Faculty Award 2000, J William Fulbright Scholar Award in 2007, and FEMA Project Impact Best Community Award in 2000.

University of Osijek, Croatia

Texas Tech University, USA

Dr. Venky Shankar is Professor and Barnhart Chair of Civil Engineering at Texas Tech University. He is a former chairperson of the department. Prior to coming to Texas Tech, Dr. Shankar was a full professor at Penn State. Dr. Shankar has served as faculty member at the University of Washington, Seattle. Further, Dr. Shankar spent four years as visiting scholar and research engineer at the UC Berkeley. Dr. Shankar is well-cited for his work on transportation infrastructure safety, being ranked among the top ten scholars in the world on the basis of field-weighted citation impact.

Beijing University of Technology, China

Meng Guo is a Full Professor and Ph.D. supervisor in National Key Laboratory of Bridge Safety and Resilience and The Key Laboratory of Urban Security and Disaster Engineering of Ministry of Education at Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, China. He was an assistant professor in the National Center for Materials Service Safety at University of Science and Technology Beijing, 2016-2018. He holds his Ph.D. (2016) and Master (2012) degrees all in Railway and Highway Engineering at Harbin Institute of Technology. He worked as a visiting scholar in Civil Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin for one year (2013-2014). His research interests are performance evaluation and life extension of transportation infrastructures including pavements. As the first or corresponding author, he has published more than 100 papers. He has obtained 28 authorized patents. As the Editor-in-Chief, he is taking charge of a group standard. The achievement has been applied to many important projects, such as the extended line of southeast second ring road of Jinan city project, which has won the Jeme Tianyou Award. He serves as Associate Editor in four SCI journals including Road Materials and Pavement Design, ASCE Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering, ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering Part B: Pavements, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems. He also serves as the Vice-Chair of interdisciplinary department of World Transport Convention (WTC).

Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway

Claudia van der Laag (formerly Yamu) is an architect and urban planner. She is an expert on transport land use planning including people's behaviour in cities applying a wide-range of analytical techniques including method and tool development at the forefront of virtual modelling. As a former project consultant she excels in combining the theoretical innovations with practice-oriented solutions and has been involved in numerous international projects. Claudia was awarded the prestigious Michael Breheny Prize in 2015 for her work on multiscale, multifractal urban planning models. She is an editorial board member for Springer’s The Urban Book Series and has been a reviewer for national research funding agencies in Europe and the Middle East. She holds a PhD in Architecture from TU Wien connecting architecture, urban planning and computer science and a PhD in Geography and Regional Planning in complexity-based modelling from Université de Franche-Comté. She dedicates her work to the development of sustainable cities and regions.

Concordia University, Canada

Dr. Biao Li is an Associate Professor of Geotechnical Engineering at Concordia University. He joined Concordia in Aug. 2016. Previously, he obtained a B.Sc. and a MASc from China University of Geosciences Beijing, and latterly a Ph.D. from the University of Calgary, Canada. His research expertise is in experimental and computational geomechanics, thermal-hydro-mechanical coupling, soil-structure interaction, and geophysics. He was selected as a future leader of the American Rock Mechanics Association (ARMA) in 2021. He serves as the associate editor of Environmental Geotechnics, and as the editorial board members of Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment, Geotechnical and Geological Engineering, Marine Georesources & Geotechnology, and Deep Resources Engineering.

Shenzhen University ,China

Dr. Xiaoxu Huang, Assistant Professor, Shenzhen Peacock Program overseas high-level talents. Dr. Huang graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, majoring in solid Mechanics. Current research interests mainly include marine floating structures, reliability analysis, structural durability, FRP concrete structures and life-cycle assessment. Dr. Huang is a member of International Society of Civil Engineering Composite Materials, guest editor of Materials journal, reviewer of several international journals such as Structural Safety and Engineering Structures. Dr. Huang has published more than 30 SCI papers, and has hosted several projects include National Natural Science Foundation projects, Guangdong Natural Science Foundation projects and Shenzhen Science and Technology projects.

Marshall university, USA

Professor Wael Zatar served as the Founding Dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Sciences and previously served as the Dean of the College of Information Technology and Engineering at Marshall University from 2011 to 2020. He was named the Distinguished J.H. Fletcher Chair in 2016. He served at West Virginia University Institute of Technology and the University of Kentucky earlier. He is the President of the West Virginia Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers. He serves on the editorial boards of several journal publications and has authored or co-authored more than 225 research papers. Many factual references support the positive impact he made. A fellow of the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute, he received 80 awards/honors. Accumulating 34 years of experience and serving several professional societies, Dr. Zatar made outstanding contributions by receiving many significant funded research grants and gaining national/international acclaim. Serving as an active member of ASCE, ACI, PCI, and TRB, he has 31 years of research and experience that have gained him national and international acclaim. He has made outstanding contributions to education, research, and development by receiving a plethora of significant funded research grants from several state, federal, and international agencies.

Dalhousie University, Canada

University of Wollongong, Australia

Dr. Yang has been involved in the study of sediment transport and hydraulics for almost 20 years. From 1988-1994, he engaged in large scale physical model studies of sediment transport in Three-Gorge Reservoir (one of the largest reservoirs in the world). From 1999-2005, he had the chances to study experimentally the sediment transport in Singapore strait and Singapore's beach evolution using physical model. After 2003, Dr. Yang has shifted his research works from experimental study to theoretical study.

Shenzhen University, China

University of Liverpool, UK

Birmingham City University, UK

Sr. PMCM Construction Management Specialit, Dorsch Gruppe Doha, Qatar

A certified projects and engineering manager and Lean Construction Management Specialist who has worked at several global engineering and consulting firms. Ramez is a Ph.D. and Master’s degree holder in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Tokyo Metropolitan University. He brings over 25 years of professional experience in various engineering disciplines to deliver complex and challenging infrastructure projects in Japan and the Middle East. He managed several mega infrastructure projects in Qatar and contributed to enhancing project delivery and lean construction management for various projects. Ramez is also an active researcher and educator, having published multiple peer-reviewed technical and construction management-related papers presented at international conferences and taught at several universities.

Ministry of Municipality ,Qatar

Nuvoco Vistas Corp. Ltd.

Samidha Pathak is a Senior R&D Manager at Nuvoco Vistas Corp. Ltd. She works at the Construction Development and Innovation centre - CDIC for concrete technology. She oversees the development of innovative products and solutions, troubleshooting and optimization, novel supplementary cementing materials, usage of alternate industrial by products, sustainable developments and driving projects from concept to execution. As a civil engineer, Samidha has completed her master's from NIT Nagpur and is also currently pursuing her doctoral studies in valorization of industrial by products from IIT Bombay. She is also a part of the Civil Engineering Division CED 2 committee for BIS, She loves writing and has written about hundred columns in leading regional newspapers on women and youth. For her, it's a privilege to combine academic research with industry applications, and share insights from both the worlds.