William Young

Professor William Young is Chair of Civil Engineering, Monash University. He has a distinguished professional and academic career, having worked at Monash University since 1975 (43 years) and prior to joining Monash in the transport industry in England, Germany and several States of Australia for 4 years. He has also held visiting positions at Oxford, Nanyang, Karlsruhe, Michigan State and Hong Kong Universities, and the Australian Bureau of Transport Economics and Communication Economics.

He received his BE (with Honours) degree from the University of New South Wales (1970), his Graduate Diploma in Management and MBA from Deakin University (1997, 1999), and his Master of Science (1990) and PhD (1982) from Monash University.

Professor Young has wide-ranging interests and has researched, consulted and published widely in the land-use/transport/environment interaction, parking, engineering management and education areas. He has worked on several international research projects with teams from Sweden, Hong Kong, Japan, the UK, Germany and Indonesia, and was an Associate Editor of the international journal Transportation for 12 years. He has published over two hundred papers and co-authored four books on transportation. He has been awarded a Chartered Institute of Transport Excellence Award, Bureau of Transport and Communication Fellowship, Alexander Von Humboldt Fellowship, and Monash Postgraduate Award.

He has 43 years experience in teaching at an undergraduate and postgraduate level, and has also developed and run many distance education programs, short courses and workshops for industry.

Professor Young has held a number of senior administrative positions at Monash, including: Head of the Department of Civil Engineering (1999-2007), Head of the Caulfield Division of the Department of Civil Engineering (1995-7), Head of the Institute of Transport Studies (Monash) (1995-8, 2005, 10, 11-date), Head of the Monash Transport Group (1994,5,6, 2008-date), Director of Graduate and Further Education in the Faculty of Engineering (2001-7) and Chairperson of the Monash University Advisory Committee on People with Disabilities (1997-2002).

Jie Han

Dr. Jie Han is the Glenn L. Parker Professor of Geotechnical Engineering in the Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering Department at the University of Kansas. He received his BS and MS degrees in Geotechnical Engineering from Tongji University in 1986 and 1989, respectively and his Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1997. His research has focused on geosynthetics, ground improvement, pile foundations, buried structures, and roadways. Prof. Han is the sole author of the book entitled “Principles and Practice of Ground Improvement” published by Wiley and has published more than 350 peer-reviewed journal and conference papers. Prof. Han is the past president of the International Association of Chinese Infrastructure Professionals, the current chair of the ASCE Geo-Institute Soil Improvement Committee, and the council member of the International Geosynthetics Society. He serves as an associate editor for the ASCE Journal of Geotechnical & Geoenvironmental Engineering and the ASCE Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering and as an editorial board member for ten other international journals. He was the technical co-chair for the ASCE/IFAI GeoFrontiers Conference held in Dallas, Texas in 2011. Dr. Han has been invited to give more than 200 keynote/invited lectures and short courses around the world, including the State of the Practice Lecture at the 21st Annual George F. Sowers Symposium in Atlanta, Georgia in 2018 and the 18th UK IGS Lecture in London in 2018. He has received numerous awards from the profession including but not limited to two US Transportation Research Board Best Paper Awards in 2008 and 2017, the 2011 Shamsher Prakash Prize for Excellence in Practice of Geotechnical Engineering, the 2014 the International Geosynthetics Society Award, the 2014 Associate Editor of the Year Award from the ASCE Journal of Geotechnical & Geoenvironmental Engineering, the 2017 ASCE Martin S. Kapp Foundation Engineering Award, and the 2018 ASCE Kansas City Section Engineer of Year Award. Dr. Han was elected to the ASCE Fellow in 2014.

Fumihiko Nakamura

Graduated from the Department of Urban Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Tokyo, and completed the master’s program at the same graduate school. Doctor of engineering. After working as an assistant professor at the University of Tokyo, an assistant professor at Asian Institute of Technology, and an assistant professor at Yokohama National University, he has been a professor since 2004 and has been in his current position since 2011. Specializes in urban transportation planning, transportation facility planning, and urban planning in developing countries. Representative books include “Mobility Design for Urban Transportation: Focusing on Town Development and Public Transportation”, “Bus Changes Town-BRT Introduction Planning Method-“, “Bus Town Development” and many others.

Fabrizio Paolacci

Fabrizio Paolacci is an Associate Professor in Structural Engineering at the University Roma Tre – Department of Engineering. Graduated in Civil Engineering in 1992 at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, and he got a Ph.D. in Structural Engineering in 1997. He was Visiting Scholar in 1999 at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the University of California at Berkeley. From 2008 to 2013, he assumed the role of scientific coordinator of the Laboratory of Testing Materials and Structures of the Department of Structures of the University Roma Tre. Currently, He is Chair of PVP Division Seismic Engineering Technical Committee of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering.

He gained a long standing experience in the management of international research projects about experimental and numerical assessment of the seismic response of civil and industrial structures. His main scientific interests are focused on the Performance-based design of steel-concrete composite bridges, Assessment and reduction of the seismic risk of reinforced concrete buildings and bridges, Seismic risk of major-hazard industrial plants, and applicability of innovative protection systems (base isolation and energy dissipation), Seismic vulnerability of high-voltage electric networks and substations and applicability of innovative seismic protection systems, Passive and semi-active control of structures.

He is the author of more than 180 publications in International peer-reviewed Journals and conferences.

Anand Puppala

Dr. Anand Puppala (PI) is a distinguished teaching professor in Civil Engineering and Coordinator of Geotechnical Engineering program at the University of Texas (UTA) at Arlington, Texas, USA. Dr. Puppala joined UTA as an assistant professor in 1996 and was promoted to associate professor in 2001 and to professor in 2005. Dr. Puppala received his BE, MTech and PhD from GITAM, IIT Chennai and Louisiana State University, respectively. Dr. Puppala received 2012-13 University Distinguished Record of Research award, the highest award given to a faculty member with a distinguished research record. He was also the recipient of 2004-5 College of Engg's Outstanding Researcher award. In Teaching, Dr. Puppala received UT system’s regents teaching award in 2010 and was the first engineering professor from UT Arlington to receive this highest teaching honor in Texas. Dr. Puppala was also inducted to the UT Arlington’s Academy of Distinguished Teachers, an highest teaching honor for a professor at UT Arlington. Dr. Puppala has received several awards including the College of Engineering’s “Outstanding Young Faculty” Award in 2000-2001 and the 2008 University Award for Outstanding Advisor. Dr. Puppala also served as President of United States Universities Council on Geotechnical Education and Research (USUCGER) from 2007-2009. He was also a past Chair of American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)’s Geotechnical Institute’s “Engineering Geology and Site Characterization” committee from 2003-2006. Dr. Puppala is extensively involved with the National Academy of Science’s Transportation Research Board (TRB) since 1992. He recently served as the chairman of TRB committee on “Soil and Rock Instrumentation (AFS 20) (2006-2012).” He has been conducting research on stabilization of expansive soils, sustainable utilization of recycled materials, dams and embankments, in situ intrusive methods for site characterization, and pavement material characterization studies. Dr. Puppala’s research is also highly regarded by the professional community, as evidenced by his scholarly record of 7 Book Chapters, 149 journal and Geotechnical Special Publications, 58 Refereed Conference Papers, 50 Non-refereed Conference Papers and 30 Technical Reports. He has so far supervised 17 Doctoral and 45 Masters students. He was an invited keynote speaker at several major conferences all over the World. He was a visiting professor (Sabbatical) at Columbia University, New York; King Saudi University, Riyadh; Southeast University, Nanjing, China and Ecole Polytechnic, Lille, France. Dr. Puppala is a current editorial member for several journals including American Society of Testing Materials’ Geotechnical Testing Journal, American Society of Civil Engineers’ Journals of Materials and ASCE Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering and a chief editor of Thomas Telford’s Ground Improvement Journal (UK). He also edited several books including ASCE’s Geotechnical Special Publication on Site Characterization