Home - KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Dr. Chao Jiang is now an associate professor for research in Department of Structural Engineering at Tongji University, Shanghai, China. He received his PhD degree in structural engineering from Tongji University and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at University of Colorado at Boulder, USA after PhD study. He is an editor of the Journal of Frontiers of Structural and Civil Engineering, the Civil Engineering Edition of the series journals of Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), and an expert for the CAE Global Engineering Fronts Project. He is also members of several academic organizations, e.g., ASCE-EMI, fib and IAFSS. He has held, as PI, 3 national-level research projects and 2 provincial-level talent projects. He has published 34 peer-reviewed journal papers, among which 22 were published on JCR Q1 journals with an average IF of 7.48 and 4 on journals with IF larger than 10. He has also co-edited/co-authored 4 standards, one monograph and one textbook. He received the Featured Paper Award awarded by the Journal of Engineering Structures, the 2022 Outstanding Reviewer awarded by the China Association for Science and Technology and the Huaxia Construction Science & Technology 1st Prize awarded by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of China. His research interest is Performance Evolution and Control for Concrete Structures under combined load and environmental actions with recent special focus on fire resistance and resilience of corroded RC structures.
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. He received more than 80 awards and honors. 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
Chuang Feng obtained his PhD from the University of Western Ontario, Canada. Now he is a full professor and the director of the Intelligent Civil Engineering Materials and Structures Lab at School of Civil Engineering in Nanjing Tech University, China. Professor Feng was among the World’s Top 2% Scientists in the field of Civil Engineering in the 2022 lists compiled by Stanford University. He has published more than 60 papers in prestigious journals (i.e., ement and Concrete Composites, Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, Composite Structures, Construction and Building Materials, Journal of Building Engineering, etc.), which attract nearly 2600 google citations with h-index being 25. Particularly, one paper is selected as the Front Cover image by Polymer composites due to its novelty and high quality. By now, Professor Feng have supervised more than 25 PhD and master stuents in total (research-based), who have published highly quality papers in prestigious journal and received honors and scholarships for visiting world-class universities (i.e., University of Manchester and Nanyang Technological University). Professor Feng has been invited to give plenary/keynote presentations and serve as session chair by a number of international conferences. He is now the young board member of Nano Materials Science (IF=9.9) and long-term reviewer for more than 60 international journals
Dr. Jazaei joined SRU as an assistant professor of Civil Engineering. She earned her Ph.D. degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She worked as a professional engineer and project manager for many residential and commercial buildings while she was working on her M.S. degree in Structural Engineering at the Tehran Azad University. She received her Bachelor of Science from the Shahrood University of Technology in 2002. Dr. Jazaei taught a variety of courses in both civil and mechanical engineering from introductory to design courses. She also served as an adviser for senior design projects and research teams. Dr. Jazaei’s extensive industrial background provides her students with an industrial approach to be prepared for an engineering career. Her student-centered pedagogy has a significant emphasis on project-based learning to foster students’ technical excellence and collaborative work experience. Dr. Jazaei’s research interests have focused on broad range of experimental material characterization and computational simulation of advanced materials subject to statics and dynamics loading conditions. The overarching emphasis in Dr. Jazaie’s work has been to develop composites with multifunctional nanomaterials to improve composites’ failure mechanism for structural health monitoring as well as energy absorption enhancement. The multidisciplinary nature of Dr. Jazaei’s research creates a rich learning environment to involve several fields in engineering and science. She enjoys involving students who have a strong desire to learn about advanced materials characterization, failure and fracture mechanics, image processing (SEM), and computational modeling (FEM). Dr. Jazaei is a voting member of the American Concrete Institute (ACI) Committee 241-A01 (The Application and Implementation of Nano-Engineered Concrete, member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME).
Dr. Ming Hu is an Associate Professor at the School of Architecture and Associate Professor at College of Engineering, University of Notre Dame, USA. Ming Hu is an architect and environmental engineer who studies how to decarbonize the built environment through net-zero impact and healthy building design, particularly focusing on life cycle impact and human healthcentered decarbonization of the US building stock. Specifically, she investigates the life cycle environmental impacts associated with building technologies and policies, as well as how community and societal priorities can be better incorporated into decision-making processes. Her research methods encompass life cycle assessment, energy modeling, computer vision, and complex relationship modeling (SEM). Three specific research areas are: • life cycle environmental impacts associated construction activities • Embodied carbon associated building materials • Health risks associated housing condition Hu has authored over 100 peer-reviewed papers and conference proceeding papers. Her works have been selected as part of the Sustainability Exhibit at the 2017 United Nations Climate Change (COP23). Among her authored and coauthored papers, she has contributed articles to Building and Environment, Energy and Buildings, Sustainable Cities and Societies and the Science Advance. She is author of the book “Net Zero Building: Predicted and Unintended Consequences” published by Routledge in 2019. “Smart Technologies and Design for Healthy Built Environments. by Springer in 2020, and “Green Building Costs: The Affordability of Sustainable Design published by Routledge in 2023.
Monika Podworna is a Professor of the Faculty of Civil Engineering at Wroclaw University of Science and Technology. She is the Head of the Department of Mechanics of Structures and Urban Engineering. From 2011 to 2013, Monika was a chair of the project entitled Dynamics of composite railway bridges for high-speed railways including approach zones and random parameters. The research team has developed a database containing the values of parameters of the planar models of bridges forming the SCB (steel - concrete bridges) series-of-types railway structure (a type-of-series of beam composite bridges) and approach slabs, adapted to high-speeds of passenger trains. Dr. Monika Podworna focuses on dynamics of building structures as well as on the replacement costs of buildings. She is also a real estate appraiser in Poland since 1997.
Dr. Vladi Frid has significant experience in research in rock physics (fracture mechanics/dynamics), applied geophysics, and earthquake-related issues (earthquake forecast, liquefaction, etc.). The features of Ground Penetrating Radar applications (both land- and drone-based) and especially the optimization of the efficiency of data acquisition and processing in complicated conditions of Civil Engineering and Construction Sites are in the mainstream of his scientific interests. His scientific list includes more than 60 referred papers and two monographs.
Maria Azzalin is Ph.D. in Technology of Architecture and Researcher at the Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria. Her studies encompass service life planning and durability in the Building sector, particularly focusing on the issues related to the phase of Operation &Maintenance and its future developments through the Digital Twin approach. Concerning these themes, she took part in some national and international research projects and scientific committees, and she is authored and coauthored many peer-reviewed papers and conference proceeding papers. She was co-founder and member of the Council of Administration of BimCo an innovative start-up company dealing with the use of BIM in the construction sector and she is since 2018 founding partner of B.I.G. srl Academic Spin-Off and innovative start-up, that offers and experiments with an innovative approach to building maintenance through the ICT.
Since 1989, Ir. Dr. Ramli bin Hj. Nazir has been a Lecturer in the Geotechnical and Transportation Department of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. Holds a B. Civil Eng. from UTM in 1983 and a PhD in Geotechnical Engineering from the University of Liverpool in 1994 and was appointed as a Professor in Geotechnical Engineering in 1998. He has over 34 years of expertise in Geotechnical Engineering, specializing in Foundations, Ground Improvement, and Geotechnical Forensics. He has published over 200 scientific articles and journals in his field of expertise, and he has been invited to deliver a keynote speech at over 75 conferences and seminars throughout the world. In addition, as a Professor in Geotechnical Engineering, he is also a Professional Engineer who has numerous experiences as a Design Engineer, Design Checker and Geotechnical Technical Advisor to various government and private agencies which also involved in many Civil Forensic works including Structural and Infrastructures in Malaysia. He was also involved as a member of the Technical Committee on Eurocode 7 Malaysian Annex, which is responsible for regulating the use of Eurocode 7 according to local demands, as well as a member of the Construction and Industrial Development Board of Malaysia and the Public Works Department Malaysia. He is an invited fellow member of the Indonesian Society of Geotechnical Engineering (HATTI) and a member of the international expert panel for the Indonesian National Earthquake Study Centre (PUSGEN). He also assists the Standards and Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia (SIRIM) and the Public Works Department (JKR) with design specifications for specialist work such as Soil Anchor and Load Testing. He also serves as a commissioner on the National Slope Failure Enquiry Commission. He also gives geotechnical presentations to government and corporate technical organizations such as JKR, PETRONAS, SHELL, Malaysia Productivity Corporation, and others. Prof. Ramli is also an Honorary Fellow at the Tropical Geoengineering Centre at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.