Organizing Committee
Sidney Mindess
Conference Chair
Dr. Sidney Mindess is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of British Columbia, which he first joined in 1969. His particular areas of interest have been fibre reinforced concrete, the cracking and fracture of concrete, the behaviour of concrete under impact loading, durability, and the sustainability of concrete. He has co-authored 6 books and over 300 technical papers, and continues to write and consult on various aspects of concrete technology. He is a Fellow of the American Concrete Institute, the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering, the American Ceramic Society, RILEM, and Engineers Canada.
Nemkumar Banthia
Conference Co-chair
Professor Banthia, Distinguished University Scholar and Senior Canada Research Chair at University of British Columbia, is one of Top 25 ‘Most Cited in the field of Construction & Building Materials’ as per Platinum H-Index.
His research focus is on the development of Carbon-Neutral, Smart and Disaster Resilient Concrete Infrastructure with emphasis on Ultra High Performance Concrete, Self-Healing Materials, Waste Recycling, Sensors and Data-Analytics, AI, and Nanotechnology.
Dr. Banthia holds 9 patents, has published over 475 refereed papers and has edited 20 volumes. He serves on the Editorial Board of nine international journals and is the Editor-in-Chief of the J. of Cement and Concrete Composites— a journal with a 2022 Impact Factor of 12.6. This is the Journal with the highest impact factor in the field of Construction Materials.
Dr. Banthia is a fellow of the American Concrete Institute, Canadian Society for Civil Engineering, Indian Concrete Institute, Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE), Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE), and the Royal Society of Canada.
Salman Soleimani-Dashtaki
Conference Secretary
Dr. Salman Soleimani-Dashtaki obtained his PhD in civil engineering from the University of British Columbia in 2018, working on Seismic Strengthening of Unreinforced Masonry Walls Using Sprayable Ecofriendly Ductile Cementitious Composite (EDCC). He received his BASc with a minor in commerce from the Sauder School of Business at UBC. Dr. Soleimani has been an active member of the both UBC and BC chapters of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI), and he now serves on the Board of Directors of the BC EERI Chapter. He is currently working as a postdoctoral fellow and a sessional lecturer at the civil engineering department of the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver.
Dr. Soleimani has co-chaired two international conferences, organized a large number of technical seminars and workshops, and has served on the scientific committees of various international meetings. He has co-edited two books on New Horizons for Fiber Reinforced Concrete (FRC: The Modern Landscape) and the Modern Developments in Performance of Structures Under Extreme Loading, and has authored a number of articles and technical reports on sustainable construction materials, retrofit techniques for unreinforced masonry, materials undergoing extreme loading, structural health monitoring (SHM), ambient vibration techniques, and operational modal analysis.
Rishi Gupta
Dr. Rishi Gupta is a Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Victoria. He leads the Facility for Innovative Materials and Infrastructure Monitoring (FIMIM) at UVic. He received both a masters and a PhD in Civil Engineering (Materials) from the University of British Columbia. His current research is focused on studying smart self healing cement-based composites containing supplementary cementitious materials and fiber reinforcement.
His areas of interest include development of sustainable construction technologies, structural health monitoring, and non-destructive evaluation of infrastructure. He has more than 15 years of combined academic and industry experience.
His industry experience includes working as the Director of Research of Octaform Systems Inc in Vancouver. Rishi is a Fellow of Engineers Canada and the past chair of the EGBC’s Burnaby/New West branch. He is the past Chair of the international affairs committee of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering (CSCE). He is a long standing member of the American Concrete Institute and is also a voting member of several subcommittees of ASTM C 09
Obinna Onuaguluchi
Dr. Obinna Onuaguluchi obtained his Ph.D. from the Eastern Mediterranean University in 2012. As a Research Associate, Dr. Onuaguluchi’s studies over the past years have been centered mainly on material sustainability and the reduction of the negative carbon footprint of the construction industry. In collaboration with industrial partners, the development of durable cement-based applications, reinforced with biomaterial, and the valorization of industrial byproducts as additives in cement composites are the main thrust of his recent research activities.
Negar Roghanian
Dr. Negar Roghanian is an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where she also completed her Ph.D. and postdoctoral fellowship in Sustainable Infrastructure Research Group (SIERA). Her research focus is on the development of innovative repair materials to enhance the service life and durability of concrete infrastructures.
Negar’s research has received widespread recognition in the industry and academia and have been patented and published in renowned civil engineering journals. Her research funded by the NSERC and Sustainability Innovations Fund (SIF) from Metro Vancouver aims to run and test an industrial-scale demonstration of the technology.
Apart from her research work, Negar has also gained more than 10 years of industry experience and is currently a Research Project Manager at Metro Testing & Engineering Inc.
Caijun Shi
Dr. Caijun Shi, is currently a Chair Professor of College of civil Engineering, Hunan University and China Academy of Building Materials Academy, China. He received his B. Eng and M. Eng from Southeast University, Nanjing, China and his Ph.D from University of Calgary, Canada. He is an Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Sustainable Cement-based Materials, associate editor of Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering, and an editorial board member of Cement and Concrete Research, Cement and Concrete Composites, Journal of Chinese Ceramic Society and Journal of Building Materials. Dr. Shi is a member of many technical committees within ACI and RILEM. His research interests include characterization and utilization of industrial by-products and waste materials, design and testing of cement and concrete materials, development and evaluation of cement additives and concrete admixtures, and solid and hazardous waste management. He has developed several novel technologies and products in these areas, and has been granted four US patents and eight Chinese patents.
Doo-Yeol Yoo
Dr. Doo-Yeol Yoo is an Associate Professor of Architecture and Architectural Engineering at Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea. He has been working on performance enhanced fiber-reinforced cementitious composites, including UHP-FRC and SHCC. His total number of citations is 7,384 and h-index is 48 (Scopus). Over the past decade, he has published over 200 peer-reviewed international journal papers and 1 book chapter and holds 8 domestic patents in the fields of construction materials and structures. He holds 4 highly cited papers (Web of Science) and his 13 published papers in journals of Elsevier have been selected as one to the top most cited and downloaded papers. He serves on the editorial board of five international journals and has received several prestigious awards: World’s Top 2% Scientists 2022 (Stanford University); Member of Young Korean Academy of Science and Technology; The 25th Young Scientist Award (Ministry of Science and ICT, Korea); HYU Young Researcher Awards (Hanyang University); Best Paper Award, Int. J. Concr. Struct. Mater. (Springer); Ministry’s Commendation (Ministry of Education, Korea).
Yamei Zhang
Dr. Yamei Zhang is a Professor in School of Materials Science & Engineering from Southeast University in Nanjing, China. She is also an affiliate professor in the department of civil engineering from the University of British Columbia, Canada. She is also the director of Nanjing Institute for Intelligent Additive Manufacturing, the official academic partner of the Lafarge Innovation Center, Holcim group. She serves on several national and international academic committees and journals. She is now the associate editor of the journal of Cement and Concrete Composites. Her research covers cementitious composites, 3D printing, and utilization of solid wastes.