Biographical note

​Prof Behzad Fatahi is Head of Discipline (Geotechnical and Transportation Engineering)and Associate Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He has published more than 100peer reviewed journal papers related to civil/geotechnical/structural engineering.He hasabout 10 years of industry experience in the field of civil/ geotechnical engineering in consulting companies such as Coffey and Soil Engineering Services (SES) resulting in more than 50 major technical reports for clients. Behzad was named Australasia Young Railway Engineer of Year by Engineers Australia and Railway Technical Society of Australasia. Behzad was also awarded the first prize Young Geotechnical Professional by the Australian Geomechanics Society (Sydney Office).His research and practical interests include ground improvement techniques for roads and railway lines, viscous behaviour of clays, bioengineering, soil-structure-interaction, and unsaturated soil mechanics. Prof Fatahi hasworked significantly on design of bridges, structures and foundations against earthquakes and has been researching on new design and construction techniques to improve performance of these structures under large earthquakes and fault ruptures.

Prof Shenen Chen is professor of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is a registered professional engineer with a research interest in Structural Health Monitoring of Bridges, Power Transmission Structure Design, Geophysics and Mining Science. He completed both his undergraduate and graduate studies at the West Virginia University. He has authored, co-authored and edited 92 journal papers, 15 books and book chapters and 80 peer-reviewed conference papers. He is a Fulbright Scholar, Indian GIAN and TEQIP visiting professor (National Institute of Technology Trichy), high-end experts for Tongji University and Sichuan University of China.

Dr. Jun Hu is an associate professor (MEng/PhD supervisor) of the College of Civil Engineering and Architecture of Hainan University and the Director of Institute of Marine Geotechnical Research. He was appointed as the first batch of youth "Master of South China Sea" and key member of the "Double Hundred" talent person team in Hainan Province. He was also honoured as the top-notch person of Hainan province. With over 130 publications in international refereed journals, more than 100 national patents, seven software copyrights, four monographs and four textbooks, he is currently conducting interdisciplinary research relating marine geotechnical engineering, tunnel and underground engineering, artificial ground freezing technology and intelligent construction.