Speakers

Dr. QIAN Xudong is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS), Group Head of the Structural and Offshore Engineering, and the Director for the Centre for Advanced Materials and Structures NUS. He received his Bachelor (1st Class Honors) and PhD in Civil Engineering from NUS in 2000 and 2005, respectively. Prior to joining NUS as a faculty member, he worked as a post-doctoral research associate in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC). Prof Qian’s research interest focuses on experimental fracture mechanics, data driven digital twins for welded structures, fracture, fatigue and integrity assessment for large-scale structures, welded connections, steel-concrete-steel composite structures, and polymer composite materials. Prof Qian has been serving as members in different Technical Committees for the International Ship and Offshore Structures Congress from 2009 to 2018. He is also a member of the technical committee in American Society of Testing and Material E08 – Fatigue and Fracture, and a member of the editorial board for Engineering Fracture Mechanics, Fatigue and Fracture of Engineering Materials and Structures, Composite Materials and Engineering, etc.
Title: To be updated.

Dr. Hany El Naggar, Ph.D., P.Eng., is a Professor of GeoStructural/Geotechnical Engineering at Dalhousie University with more than 25 years of experience in civil construction, geotechnical and structural engineering and research in Canada and overseas. He has participated in several geotechnical and structural investigations and is experienced in the analysis and design of foundations and soil- structure interaction of buried infrastructure. Dr. El Naggar and his research team have investigated the soil-structure interaction (SSI) effects around buried infrastructure; explored innovative use of tire derived aggregate (TDA) as a buffer zone to create stress arching and reduce demand on rigid culverts, proposed an earth pressure reduction system using geogrid reinforced platform bridging system to reduce stresses on buried utilities, and developed innovative “cellular” precast concrete pipe system. Also, He has developed a simplified technique to account for the group Effect in pile dynamics; and closed form solutions for the moments and thrusts in jointed and un-jointed composite tunnel lining systems, designed several foundation systems ranging from machine foundations subjected to dynamic loads to raft foundations for underground structure, as well as several tunnels and underground structures in Canada, Europe, Middle East, and the United States. The findings from Dr. El Naggar’s research have been reported in more than 130 technical publications covering both experimental and numerical work in the fields of soil-structure interaction, buried infrastructure and concrete pipes. Dr. El Naggar’s research work on the seismic performance of corrugated steel plate culverts led to changing the seismic provisions of the new version of the Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code (CHBDC, 2019) to include rigorous dynamic analysis for flexible buried structures in zones of high seismicity. Besides, his work on the modelling of rigid pipes is featured in the CHBDC (2019) as an example of the best practice in the modelling of buried concrete structures. Dr. El Naggar is the recipient of the 2016-2017 Outstanding Teaching Award from the Faculty of Engineering, Dalhousie University. In addition, he received the 2005-2006 Outstanding Teaching Award from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Western. Dr. El Naggar won the 2006 L. G. Soderman Award, the 2005 R.M. Quigley Award, and the 2004 Milos Novak Memorial Award. Dr. El Naggar is the current chair of the Buried Structures Committee of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers (CSCE); also, he is a member of the technical committee on buried structures of the Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code (CHBDC). In addition, he is a member of several professional associations including the Association of Professional Engineers of Nova Scotia; the Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO); the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering (CSCE), the Canadian Geotechnical Society (CGS); the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE); and the Engineers Syndicate, Egypt.

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.

Title: To be updated.