Speakers

Prof. Alessandro Baratta,Deptr. of Structures for Engineering and Architectute, University of Naples Federico II, Italy

Prof. Alessandro Baratta graduated in Civil Engineering in 1969. Since 1980 he is Full Professor of "Science of Constructions" of the University of Naples "Federico II". Head of the Dept. of Scienza delle Costruzioni from 1997 to 2003. Member of the Administrative Board of the University of Naples from 2001 to 2003. Past vice-President of the European Association for Structural Control (EACS) and past member of the Council of the British Masonry Society. Adviser of the Italian National Researches Council (CNR) for Technical Standards. Author or co-author of more than 300 scientific publications and of 3 scientific and didactic books. The research activity is articulated on the following main themes: Probabilistic Theory of Structural Mechanics, Structural Safety, Limit Analysis, Theory of Structures, Aseismic Engineering, Solids and Structures made by No-Tension Material; Theory and Technique of Masonry Buildings, Seismic Risk Analysis, Active Control of Civil Engineering Structures. Author of more than 300 published papers, memoirs and interventions to meetings. He is co-author of a monograph book, "PROBABILISTIC METHODS IN STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING" (Chapman & Hall Editors, London, 1984, also translated in Russian) and of another book entitled ''SEISMIC RISK IN HISTORIC CENTRES'' (Ed. Del Sole, Napoli, 1996). Finally he has published a didactic book (in Italian) ''LEZIONI DI SCIENZA DELLE COSTRUZIONI'' Ed. Liguori, Napoli, 1996.
Title: Update Soon

Prof. Jeffrey Walker, Monash University, Australia

Jeffrey Walker is an Australian Research Council Laureate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at Monash University. He is undertaking research on soil moisture remote sensing and data assimilation, including development of the only Australian airborne capability for simulating new satellite missions for soil moisture. He is contributing to soil moisture satellite missions at both NASA and ESA, as a Science Definition Team member for the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission and Cal/val Team member for the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission respectively. Professor Jeffrey Walker received his BEng(Civil) and BSurv degrees in 1996 with Hons 1 and University Medal from the University of Newcastle, Australia, and received his PhD in Water Resources Engineering from the same University in 2000. His PhD thesis was among the early pioneering research on estimation of root-zone soil moisture from remotely sensed surface soil moisture observations. He then joined NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre to implement his soil moisture work globally. In 2001 he moved to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Melbourne as Lecturer, where he continued his soil moisture work, including development of the only Australian airborne capability for simulating new satellite missions for soil moisture. In 2010 he was appointed as Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at Monash University where he is continuing this research. His primary research ambition is to lead programs in socially relevant research that will have a positive impact on the way we take care of the environment so as to result in an improved quality of life both now and in the generations to come. He believes that the key to this is through improved earth system state and flux monitoring, prediction and reporting, in a way that is relevant to policy and decision making processes, flood and drought prediction and assessment, land and water management, national weather and climate forecasting, etc. His vision is that this goal will be realised through a combination of i) environmental sensing, ii) earth system modelling, and iii) optimal convergence of model predictions with observations through data assimilation. This is a new area of research that has gained wide spread interest over the past years.
Title: Update Soon

Prof. Bin Xu, Huaqiao University, China

Dr. Bin Xu is currently the Minjiang Scholar Professor of Civil Engineering, a professorship appointed by Fujian Provincial Government, at Huaqiao University, Xiamen, China. He currently is the Director and Founder of the Key Laboratory for Intelligent Infrastructure and Monitoring (IIM) of Fujian Province, and the Director and Founder of the International Centre for Safety and Sustainability of Civil Engineering at Huaqiao University.
Before joining Huaqiao University, he was a Lotus Scholar Professor of Civil Engineering (a professorship appointed by Fujian Provincial Government) at Hunan University from 2005 to 2016 and was also the associate dean of the College of Civil Engineering at Hunan University from 2010 to 2016. He was also the Director of the Hunan Provincial Key Lab on Damage Prognosis for Engineering Structures from 2015 to 2016 at Hunan University. He taught and carried out research at the Lyles School of Civil Engineering at Purdue University as a Curtis Visiting Professor appointed by Purdue University in 2014-2015 academic year. He had been invited and financially support by European Commission to work at Sapienza University of Roma in 2010 and hired by University of Western Australia as a Gledden Visiting Senior Fellow from 2007 to 2008. Before starting working in China in 2005, he worked at University of Missouri-Rolla in US as a Post-Doc from 2003 to 2005 and at Ibaraki University in Japan as a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) postdoctoral fellow from 2001 to 2003. Dr. Xu has also proven exemplary record of teaching, research, service, leadership skills and administrative ability. Overall, he has published 148 peer-reviewed journal papers, 127 refereed conference papers and 7 edited books and proceedings. Most of his international papers are in SCI Q1 and Q2 journals and his current Google H-Index and H-10 Index is 25 and 51, respectively. He has been awarded 11 innovation patents in civil engineering and has made over 10 keynotes and invited presentations at international conferences. He serves various academic and extracurricular committees. He has organized several international workshops and conferences as chair or co-chair of organizing committee. He also serves on various academic societies as Editor-in-Chief, Executive Editor, Associate Editor, Guest Editor or editorial board member for international journals and professional committees as Standing Committee Member, Executive Member or Committee Members.
Title: Interface debonding detection approaches for concrete-filled steel tube members in high-rise buildings and long-span bridges

Prof. Shuren Wang, School of Civil Engineering of Henan Polytechnic University, China

PhD/Prof, Named to World’s Top 2% Scientists 2022-2023 (Stanford University), he is the Distinguished Professor of Henan Province in China, and he is an Adjunct Professor at the University of New South Wales, Australia.
He mainly focuses on the challenging area of geotechnical engineering, rock mechanics and numerical simulation analysis. His research projects have been supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (51774112; 51474188; 51074140; 51310105020), National Scholarship Fund of China [2023]-21, Key Project of Natural Science Foundation of Henan Province, (232300421134), International Cooperation Project of Henan province (182102410060; 162102410027), China, etc.
He was granted 2015 Endeavour Research Fellowship by the Australian Government, and he is the recipient of 11 state-level and province-level awards in China. He has published 190 SCI/EI papers and 13 books. He has been authorized 63 patents and 6 software of intellectual property rights in China.
Title: Accumulated deformation mechanism of foundation of Taijiao high-speed railway above mine-out areas

Prof. Haijun Wang, Nanjing Hydraulic Research Insititute, China

Prof. Wang has published 85 academic papers, including 45 SCI and EI papers, with a highest impact factor of 11.8. He also obtained 3 codes, 20 authorized invention patents, 2 books and 5 software copyrights. He has hosted and participated in nearly 30 scientific research projects, including the National Natural Science Foundation of China, National Key Research and Development Projects. The achievements have been selected as one of the top ten scientific and technological advancements in Jiangsu Province in 2022, and have won more than 10 awards including the first prize of the invention award of the China Water Transport Construction Association, the first prize of the Progress Award of the Chinese Society of Mechanics, the first prize of the Science and Technology Progress Award of the Jiangsu Society of Mechanics, the Science and Technology Progress Award of the Nanjing Academy of Water Sciences, and the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Award.At present, 2 doctoral graduates and 6 master's graduates have been trained.
Title: Smart Concrete for Sustainable Infrastructures

Assoc. Prof. Chongwei Zhang, State Key Laboratory of Coastal and Offshore Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, China

Dr. Chongwei Zhang, an associate professor from the State Key Laboratory of Coastal and Offshore Engineering at Dalian University of Technology, is also the deputy director of the Dalian Key Laboratory of Offshore Renewable Energy. He holds a PhD from UCL and was funded by the High-level Overseas Talents Support Plan of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. Dr. Zhang is an editorial board member of several academic journals, including the Journal of Hydrodynamics. His research focuses on the hydrodynamics of marine renewable energy. He has over 20 research projects. He has published a monograph and more than 40 papers in SCI-indexed journals and holds over 30 patents. He has participated in drafting domestic and IEEE wave energy standards and won the second prize of the Award for Science and Technology of Marine Engineering.
Title:Recent Progress of Wave Energy Harvesting Systems in DUT