A rejuvenated outlook for Transport Geotechnics in Australia

A rejuvenated outlook for Transport Geotechnics in Australia - Prof Buddhima Indraratna and geo-team moving to University of Technology Sydney (UTS)

After 3 decades of outstanding service at the University of Wollongong, Distinguished Professor Buddhima Indraratna, an executive member of TC202 and the 1st Ralph Proctor Lecture of ISSMGE, has accepted an appointment as the Director of Transport Infrastructure Research Centre at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), a timely initiative by its Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology. Several million dollars of funding has already been invested for this Transportation Centre to be propelled towards a flagship R&D unit, culminating an enhanced research and training environment with a promising potential to attract industry collaborations to be focused on strategic national projects.

The Centre will accommodate a healthy number of full-time academic and research-only staff, including four additional geotechnical staff from University of Wollongong expected to join UTS in July, including Prof Cholachat Rujikiatkamjorn, an active member of ISSMGE Bulletin and AGS Sydney Chapter. UTS geotechnical strength has been enhanced further by Distinguished Professor Daichao Sheng who had already moved to UTS as its Head of School in Civil and Environmental Engineering last year, having served University of Newcastle over many years.

Through this Centre, Buddhima has proposed that an integrated R & D approach to all forms of transport infrastructure be fostered in the demanded fields of transport geotechnics, structural design and stability, construction and maintenance, as well as soil-water interactions for port environments and flood damage mitigation. In addition, the evolving fields of data analytics and machine learning will be combined with traditional Civil Engineering principles of performance monitoring and life cycle assessment.

Considering Buddhima’s experience and leadership plus his team’s involvement with major Australian and international projects in recent times, it is expected that this new engagement in tandem with the Industrial Transformation Training Centre for Advanced Technologies in Rail Track Infrastructure (ITTC- Rail) funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) and Industry will evolve as a flagship unit to execute strategic R&D projects to enable sustainable industry practices and improved technical standards for roads, railways, runways and port infrastructure in the future. 

In the future, Buddhima can be contacted using his new email address:

 [email protected]