Plenary & Keynote Speakers

Dr. Anil Agrawal
The City College of New York, USA
Plenary Speaker

Dr. Anil Agrawal is a Herbert G. Kayser Professor of Civil Engineering at the City College of New York, distinguished member of ASCE, and past Chief Editor of the ASCE Journal of Bridge Engineering during October 2009 to September 2021. He has been the past chair of the ASCE SEI Committee on Bridge Inspection, Rehabilitation and Monitoring and ASCE SEI Committee on Structural Control and Sensing. He has also been the chair of the Engineering Mechanics committee of Metropolitan Section ASCE since 2013, and is vice-chair of ExCom of the SEI Technical Community Committee. He is recipient of several prestigious awards, including Performance Excellence Award from the City University of New York in 2000, President’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship, Teaching and Service from the City College of New York in 2015, Richard R. Torrens Award for outstanding performance as editor of the Journal of Bridge Engineering from the ASCE in 2019, Arthur M. Wellington Prize for the paper, “Heavy Truck Collision with Bridge Piers: Computational Simulation Study,” Journal of Bridge Engineering, June 2019, from the ASCE in 2020, Metropolitan Section Civil Engineer of the Year Award for character, professional integrity, contribution to academia, and years of outstanding service to ASCE and the civil engineering profession from the Metropolitan Section of ASCE in 2022, and, Ernest E. Howard for “significant contributions in structural engineering for extreme hazard mitigation and blast and impact protection of highway bridges” from the ASCE in 2022, 2022 Research Implementation award for the project “NJDOT UAS/Drone Procedures Manual and Best Practices for Use in New Jersey” by the New Jersey Department of Transportation and 2023 Raymond C. Reese Research Prize for the paper “Performance-Based Design Framework for Concrete Barriers Subjected to Truck Collision,” Journal of Bridge Engineering, August 2021. He has published more than 132 peer reviewed papers, 26 major reports and more than 200 conference papers.

Topic of Keynote: Man-made Extreme Hazard Effects on Bridges
Keynote Abstract

Dr. Ioannis Anastasopoulos
ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Keynote Speaker

Ioannis Anastasopoulos has been Full Professor of Geotechnical Engineering at ETH Zurich since 2016. As of 2023, he serves as Head of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering. He specializes in geotechnical earthquake engineering and soil–structure interaction, combining numerical with experimental methods. His academic degrees include a PhD from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), an MSc from Purdue University, and a Civil Engineering Diploma from NTUA. His research interests include resilient seismic design and mitigation techniques, sustainable retrofit of bridge foundations, faulting and its effects on structures, offshore geotechnics, tsunamis and their effects on coastal infrastructure, scouring of bridge foundations, and soil liquefaction. He is the inaugural recipient of the ISSMGE Young Researcher Award in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering, and winner of the 2012 Shamsher Prakash Research Award. He has been involved as a consultant in a variety of projects in Europe, the US and the Middle East. His consulting work ranges from the design of pile-rafts of tall buildings, to seismic design of bridge foundations, metro stations, tunnels, and quay walls, as well as special design against faulting–induced deformation. He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, and has been Associate Editor or Editorial Board Member in several Journals, such as the Journal of Earthquake Engineering and Géotechnique. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Association for Earthquake Engineering (IAEE), and Chair of ISSMGE TC104 on Physical Modelling.

Topic of Keynote: Seismic Retrofit of Existing Bridges on Pilegroups
Keynote Abstract

Dr. Behzad Nematollahi
The University of Sheffield, UK
Keynote Speaker

Topic of Keynote:

Dr. Khaled Sennah
Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada
Keynote Speaker

Dr. Khaled Sennah is a Professor of Structural Engineering at the Civil Engineering Department at Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, Canada. Dr. Sennah’s areas of expertise include the design, evaluation, and rehabilitation of bridges and the structural behavior of structural components made of steel, concrete, and timber for building applications, on which he has more than 290 publications and has supervised over 100 graduate students. He has demonstrated numerous evidences of impact and contribution to the economic design and sustainable construction that have led to field applications and standards. Dr. Sennah’s research achievements have been recognized by international awards such as the 1999 Arthur Wellington Prize for best journal paper in transportation-related infrastructure and the 2002 State-of-the-Art in Civil Engineering award for best journal paper, both from the American Society for Civil Engineers, ASCE. Also, he received the 1998 and 2020 P.L. Pratley Award for best paper in bridge engineering and the 2013 A.B. Sanderson Award for “Outstanding Contributions by a Civil Engineer to the Development and Practice of Structural Engineering in Canada,” all from the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering. In recognition of his long-term achievements, he was elected Fellow of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) in 2011, Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC) in 2016, and Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE) in 2017. Sennah was elected Fellow of the International Association of Advanced Materials (FIAAM), recognizing his contribution to “Innovative Solutions in Structural Design and Construction.” He is a member of three Canadian Standard Association’s Technical Subcommittees for developing the 2025 Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code, chair of the FRP group, member of the Material Specific Design Provisions Working Group, and member of the Structures and Analysis Working Group for the development of the 2023 CSA Standard S7 Pedestrian, Cycling and Multiuse Bridge Design Guideline. Also, he is a member of the A253 technical committee (TC) of CSA-S37 Standard: Antennas, Towers, And Antenna-Supporting Structures. Moreover, he is a member of five American Concrete Institute (ACI) committees. Dr. Sennah has a long history of significant contributions to the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) through committee membership, membership, and chairing of scientific committees of conferences, Chairing International conferences, and chairing CSCE Structures Division and others. He is an Associate Editor for the Canadian Journal for Civil Engineering and an Editorial Board member of the ASCE Journal of Composites for Construction. Also, he is the Vice President of the International Association of Jointless Bridges.

Topic of Keynote: Innovative Fabricated Steel Beams with Cold-Formed Steel: Pioneering Cost-Effective and Sustainable Building Solutions
Keynote Abstract