The Joint Young Members Austria (J-YMA) look back on a landmark year in 2025, defined by strengthened international collaboration and a series of successful events.
The year traditionally kicked off with the Guest Lecture, where the J-YMA invites other Young Member organizations to share insights into their structures and initiatives. This event is always a valuable opportunity to reassess our own activities and learn from one another. Under the title Transalpine Connection, this online event welcomed Zhasmin Mussina and Eric Carrera (STSym), along with Dimitrios Terzis (Geotechnik Schweiz YM).
Next on the agenda for 2025 was the 4th J-YMA Symposium, which, following previous editions in Vienna, Graz, and Innsbruck, took place at the Montanuniversität Leoben. The full-day event featured three technical sessions with inspiring presentations across all geo-disciplines from academia, contractors, and consultants, while also offering ample opportunity for discussion among young engineers.
For the first time, we were pleased to welcome representatives from the Young Members Presidential Group (YMPG) of the ISSMGE, as well as colleagues from North Macedonia. The opening and closing speeches were given by Prof. Robert Galler and Assoz.-Prof. Marlène Villeneuve, whose support was instrumental in enabling such an excellent venue. Overall, we were delighted to host around 80 young engineers, including a strong presence from the British Geotechnical Association Early Career Group (BGA ECG) and Junge DGGT. We would like to once again extend our sincere thanks to the Montanuniversität Leoben for their outstanding support, and in particular to Erik Schuller for his invaluable help with the organization.
We maintained this momentum into the autumn with our traditional networking evening at Die Weiße in Salzburg in October. In the course of the Geomechanics Kolloquium, we also had the opportunity to introduce university students to the field of geotechnics, and we hope to welcome some of them at future Young Member events.
Finally, in December, we hosted our annual Expert Lecture, given this year by Enrico Soranzo (BOKU Wien) on the topic AI and Computer Vision in Geotechnics. For the first time, we transitioned from a solely online format to a hybrid setup, organizing live streams to public-viewing hubs in Vienna, Innsbruck, Graz, and Leoben, thereby bringing our nationwide community together once more.
We would like to thank everyone who contributed to the success of 2025, and we are very much looking forward to an eventful 2026, highlighted by the major international conferences 8iYGEC in Graz and the 21st ICSMGE in Vienna, as well as the 5th J-YMA Symposium in Vienna truly making Austria the platform of the geotechnical world.
Get Involved!
This update is part of the broader YMPG News campaign, showcasing initiatives from young geotechnical professionals around the world.
Explore recent highlights:
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Geotechnical Challenge 2025: Young Chilean Engineers Set Attendance Record
https://www.issmge.org/news/geotechnical-challenge-2025-for-young-chilean-geotechnical-engineers-sets-attendance-record -
BGA Early Career Group: 2025 Highlights
https://www.issmge.org/news/bga-early-career-group-2025-highlights -
Bridging Generations in Geotechnics: Macedonian YMPG at EyGEC 2025 and Looking Ahead to Eurock 2026
https://www.issmge.org/news/bridging-generations-in-geotechnics-macedonian-ympg-at-eygec-2025-and-looking-ahead-to-eurock-2026
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Lets keep sharing and learning together across borders.
