BRIGHT SPARKS LECTURES - Indian Geotechnical Conference 2023, Roorkee, India
The YMPG in collaboration with the Organising Committee for the Indian Geotechnical Conference 2023, Roorkee, India would like to announce the winners of the Bright Spark Lecture Award to threr distinguished young geotechnical engineers/academics: Kaustav Chatterjee, Meghna Sharma, and Jitesh T. Chavda. They were invited to give keynote lectures on 14-16 December 2023.
Dr Kaustav Chatterjee, Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India
Bright Spark Lecture Title: "Impact of Dynamic Load on Stability Analysis of Geotechnical Structures: Theoretical and Numerical Studies"
Dr Meghna Sharma, Assistant Professor, National Institute of Technology Hamirpur, India
Bright Spark Lecture Title: "Advances in Nature-Based and Nature-Inspired Solutions for Ground Improvement"
Mr Jitesh T. Chavda, Assistant Professor, Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology Surat, India
Bright Spark Lecture Title: "Applications of Image Analysis in Geotechnical Engineering"
The Bright Spark Lecture Award was established to promote young members of the ISSMGE to play a major role in various international and regional conferences. Recipients of this award are invited to give a keynote lecture at ISSMGE conferences. All Technical Committee conference organisers and Member Society conference organisers are encouraged to select Bright Spark Lecturers at their conferences. Details regarding the award can be found on the ISSMGE website: https://www.issmge.org/the-society/awards/bright-spark-lecture-award.
We invite everyone, especially young geotechnical engineers, to come and enjoy the lectures. We hope these lectures can inspire and motivate us further to excel in our beloved field, geotechnical engineering.
Winners Bio
Kaustav Chatterjee
Dr. Kaustav Chatterjee is working as Associate Professor in Department of Civil Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee. He pursued his M.Tech. + Ph.D. Dual Degree in Geotechnical Engineering from IIT Bombay in 2016 and was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Kyoto University, Japan before joining IIT Roorkee in June 2016. His research area focuses on soil dynamics, geotechnical earthquake engineering, foundation engineering, theoretical and numerical modeling in geomechanics. He has published close to 70 research papers in SCI and SCOPUS indexed journals and reputed conferences. He has supervised 8 M.Tech. and 2 Ph.D. students with 7 more Ph.D. students currently under his supervision. He has received sponsored research project from Board of Research in Nuclear Science (BRNS), Scheme for Transformational and Advanced Research in Sciences (STARS). Dr. Chatterjee is a recipient of Associate Fellowship from INSA, Young Scientist Research Award from BRNS, Young Engineer Award in Civil Engineering from Institution of Engineers, Best PhD Thesis from IACMAG and IIT Bombay, Institute Gold Medal in B.Tech., in addition to Prof. GA Leonard Best Ph D Thesis and Best Paper Awards from Indian Geotechnical Society.
Meghna Sharma
Dr. Meghna Sharma is an Assistant Professor in Department of Civil Engineering at National Institute of Technology Hamirpur. She received DST INSPIRE Faculty Fellow Award-2022 for the project on In-situ and Generic Applications of Microbially Induced Calcite Precipitation (MICP) Technique for Ground Improvement. Dr. Sharma worked as DST INSPIRE Faculty at IIT Ropar for four months. She worked as an Institute Post-Doctoral Fellow in Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Bombay from October 2021 to April 2023. She completed her Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering from IIT Indore in August 2021. Her research interest includes the application of nature-based solutions to deal with various Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental challenges. She has one Indian Patent Grant along with 15 technical articles, and 5 conference papers published. She conferred several awards including IGS-Sardar Resham Memorial Award 2023, Springer Best Paper Award-IGC 2021, Best Research Paper Award 2020-2021 IIT Indore, and Gold Medal for best-graduating student in M.Tech. from NIT Kurukshetra. She is looking forward to achieving new milestones in the future too.
Jitesh T. Chavda
Dr. Jitesh T. Chavda is working as Assistant Professor in Department of Civil Engineering, Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology Surat. He obtained his Ph. D. from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, M.Tech. in Geotechnical Engineering from SVNIT Surat, B.E. degree and Diploma in Civil Engineering from University of Mumbai. He has worked as a Project Associate at IIT Roorkee and served as a lecturer at Rizvi College of Engineering, Mumbai. He has published papers in several reputed journals and conferences. His area of research includes computational geomechanics, conservation of heritage structures, experimental geotechnics and image analysis. He has received best paper awards in national and international conferences, recipient of institute gold medal in M.Tech. SVNIT, organised several STTPs, delivered lectures in webinars, STTPs and conferences, actively involved in many prestigious consultancy projects, and is active member in several national and international technical societies.
