Keynote lecturers

Previously Research Associate at the Belgian National Fund for Research (FRS-FNRS), Frédéric Collin has been Associate Professor at the ArGEnCo Department of the University of Liege since 2011. His research interests are in the thermo-hydro-mechanical couplings in partially saturated soils and rocks, as well as in strain localization modelling in porous media. Most of his research works have been performed through the development of the finite element code LAGAMINE, with a special attention paid to the modelling of geological nuclear waste disposals. He specifically developed a coupled hydro-mechanical second gradient model for the numerical treatment of strain localization phenomena in saturated media. The microstructure medium theory was further developed to extend the model for unsaturated conditions and cracking in concrete. Frédéric Collin is a member of the FNRS-FRIA evaluation committee and acts as a consultant in civil and geotechnical engineering. He has supervised about 10 PhD theses. 

Jacques Desrues is CNRS research professor at the 3SR Laboratory of the Université Grenoble-Alpes. His major research field is in advanced soil and rock mechanics, both from the experimental and theoretical viewpoints, with special interest in strain localization phenomena. In the recent years, he has been focusing on the multiscale analysis of deformation processes in granular media, both experimentally using microtomography and digital image correlation, and numerically by developing integrated two-scale analysis using FEM at the macroscale and DEM (Discrete Element Method) at the microscale. He was the recipient of the Ernest Déchelle Prize of the French Science Academy, in 2010, for his contribution to the development of tomography for deformable solids experimental studies. He was the head of 3SR laboratory of Grenoble from 2008 to 2013, and has been a member on the French CNRS national evaluation committee and French academic evaluation agency for 10 years. He has been the advisor of about 20 PhD theses, and scientific manager of a number of industrial and academic research projects.

Panagiotis Kotronis is Full Professor, head of the Mechanics, Materials and Civil Engineering Teaching Department and responsible for the master programme in Civil Engineering at Centrale Nantes. His main research interests are the modelling of reinforced concrete structures subjected to earthquakes, soil-structure interaction problems, 3D multifibre beam elements and the modelling of concrete through higher order continua. He is the author of more than 130 journal and conference papers. In 2015, he was awarded the French Association for Earthquake Engineering prize.

Lyesse Laloui is chaired professor at the EPFL, Lausanne. He is also adjunct professor at Duke University, USA, as well as advisory professor at Hohai University, China. His main research interests are in Geomechanics, and Environmental and Energy Sustainability. He is the Editor in Chief of the journal Geomechanics for Energy and the Environment. He is the recipient of the “Excellent Contributions Award” of the International Association for Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics in 2008, the “2012 Vardoulakis Lecture” from the University of Minnesota, the "12th G.A. Leonards Lecture" from the University of Purdue in 2014 and the “2016 RM Quigley Award” from the Canadian Geotechnical Society. He has been involved as an expert in several international projects and acts as a consultant in civil, geotechnical and geothermal engineering, including legal and arbitration cases. The patented “Geosynthetic element for soil bio-improvement” is currently being developed in the context of a start-up.