SPEAKERS
Paolo Mazzanti (MSc in Geology and PhD in Earth Sciences) is Professor of Remote Sensing at the Department of Earth Sciences of “Sapienza” University of Rome and Co-founder of NHAZCA S.r.l., Startup Sapienza University of Rome. Paolo is the organizer and scientific leader of several international courses including the annual “International Course on Geotechnical and Structural Monitoring” that, in the last 8 years, attracted more than 700 people from 60 countries and 50 partners.
Paolo is responsible of consulting projects concerning tunnels, oil & gas, dams, open mines, large transportations infrastructures and landslides for National and International firms and agencies, in 10 countries. Paolo is member of the TRB (Transportation Research Board) Engineering Geology Committee and of the informal FMGM (Field Measurement in Geomechanics) committee and associated with several scientific associations (e.g. ISHMII, AIGA).
Paolo tutored and co-tutored more than 30 MSc and PhD theses in Engineering Geology, Civil Engineering and Remote Sensing and has been invited lecturer at several International Universities and Research Centers (e.g. Italy, France, UK, Ireland, Norway, Austria, Germany, USA, Canada, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Hong Kong, Belgium).
Paolo is author of about 100 scientific papers in international journals and conference proceedings concerning the following topics: a) engineering geology (landslides, subsidences, settlements, snow avalanches); b) geological remote sensing; c) geotechnical and structural monitoring; d) monitoring by ground based and satellite radar; e) monitoring of civil structures and infrastructures, including cultural heritages; f) geotechnical assets management.
Giorgio is an independent consultant with his Company SMAK s.a.s. since 2015.
He worked for ISMES, an applied research and service centre of ENEL (Italian Electricity Board) for almost 20 years as responsible of the geotechnical and structural monitoring units, being involved in many large and critical projects for dams, tunnels, landslides, bridges, foundations, hydrometeorological and environmental projects all over the world.
In 2000 he established FIELD, where he served as Technical Director till 2014, continuing his activity of system design, field assistance and data evaluation and management.
Giorgio is a member of ISO TC 182/WG2, which is responsible for drafting European Standards on Geotechnical Monitoring and is vice chair of ISSMGE TC220 Field Monitoring.
Dr. Hlepas leads the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Geotechnical, Geology, and Materials Community of Practice and is the proponent for USACE Instrumentation and Performance Monitoring. She has 17 years of experience working as a geotechnical engineering on a variety of large projects including dams, levees, and confined disposal facilities. Dr. Hlepas has focused much of her career on advancing the instrumentation and performance monitoring state-of-practice including updating engineering guidance, performing reviews of Instrumentation and Monitoring Programs, and leading the effort to implement an enterprise-level instrumentation data management system. She has developed and taught multiple instrumentation and performance monitoring courses and workshops and has authored numerous papers on both geotechnical investigations and instrumentation topics.
Dr. Hlepas was the chairperson the US Society of Dams (USSD) Monitoring of Dams and Their Foundations Committee for several years and is a member of multiple professional organizations. She has a master’s degree in civil engineering from Columbia University in New York, a doctorate degree in civil engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago and is a licensed Professional Engineer in the state of Illinois.
Martin Derby, VP of Oil and Gas Programs/Pipeline Geohazards has over 39 years of experience in subsurface exploration, monitoring/pipeline subsidence, geohazard analysis & geotechnical design for soil stabilization.
Martin received his civil engineering technology degree from Hudson Valley Community College, his bachelor’s in geology from the University at Buffalo, and his master’s in geoscience from Montclair State University.
Martin has co-authored eight published papers on geohazard identification, monitoring and slope mitigation in the past eight years and is a professional licensed geologist in New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Alaska. International speaker on the impacts of geohazards on pipeline infrastructure/monitoring techniques with countries that include Argentina (Buenos Aires); Canada (Calgary); Italy (University of Rome); Peru (Lima); Scotland (Edinburgh), Spain (Barcelona and Madrid), and various cities in the United States.
Dr. Thomas Oommen holds the Professor and Chair of Geology and Geological Engineering position at the University of Mississippi. His primary research revolves around applying remotely sensed data, machine learning algorithms, and geological engineering expertise to address challenges in site characterization, infrastructure monitoring, and geohazard analysis. With a track record of securing research grants exceeding $10 million, Professor Oommen has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications.
Beyond his academic role, Professor Oommen actively participates in various geological and engineering organizations. He is the past Chair of the Geological Society of America’s Environmental and Engineering Geology division and is currently chairing the ASCE Engineering Geology and Site Characterization Committee. Additionally, he is chair of the Advisory Board for the Journal of Environmental and Engineering Geoscience, a collaborative publication by the Association of Environmental and Engineering Geologists and the Geological Society of America.
Werner Lienhart is Full Professor and Head of the Institute of Engineering Geodesy and Measurement Systems (IGMS) at Graz University of Technology, Austria. Prior to this position, he was Product Manager Innovation at Leica Geosystems at the Headquarter in Switzerland.
He has more than 20 years of experience in the monitoring of civil engineering structures using geodetic, geotechnical and fibre optic sensors. Prof. Lienhart has published more than 140 papers and holds several patents. He is President of the Austrian Geodetic Commission (OeGK) and President of the International Society for Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure (ISHMII).
Furthermore, Prof. Lienhart is co-founder of ACI Monitoring, a company specialized in fibre optic sensing in civil engineering and geotechnical applications.
Dr. Gabriel Walton is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geology and Geological Engineering at Colorado School of Mines. His research is primarily in the field of rock engineering, with an emphasis on numerical modeling of rock damage processes and applications of geophysics and remote sensing. Recently, his research group has been focusing heavily on applications of lidar and photogrammetry to rock slope monitoring, hazard assessment, and risk management.
Dr. Walton is heavily involved in the American Rock Mechanics Association, where he currently serves as Vice President. He also is an Associate Editor for the journal Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering.
Ms. April Fontaine has nearly 25 years of experience in geology and geotechnical engineering and is currently the National Policy Advisor for Geotechnical Engineering at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at their Headquarters, remotely from her home in Sacramento. Prior to her current role she spent 21 years in the Sacramento District, most recently as the Geotechnical Engineering Branch Chief for 11 years. Ms. Fontaine serves on several Technical Working Groups for the Association of Engineering Geologists and several committees for the Deep Foundations Institute. She is the current Chair for the USACE Landslide Committee and an instructor for several courses internal to the Corps of Engineers. She has a master’s degree from Southwestern College and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Davis and is a Licensed Professional Geologist in the State of California.
Loic GALISSON is a Geomatics Engineer graduated from INSA Strasbourg (France) with a degree of Surveying, Positioning, Navigation and Geodesy. After spending 10 years in the airborne LIDAR industry, he joined SIXENSE in 2008 to lead the Monitoring and Instrumentation program of the NZLijn metro in Amsterdam (Netherlands). Since 2012, Loic GALISSON manages SIXENSE’s activities in the US and in Canada and was actively involved in major projects such as the Alaskan Way tunnel project in Seattle, Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnels in VA and the Hwy401 undercrossing in Toronto.
Dr. Thomas Matarazzo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering at the United States Military Academy in West Point, NY. Thomas’s research specializes in monitoring and intelligence systems for civil and urban infrastructure, mobile sensor networks, autonomous sensing platforms, and multipurpose sensor data and urban services. His primary research is focused on using crowdsourced smartphone data collected within moving vehicles to determine bridge dynamics information. At West Point, Thomas is the Associate Director of High-Performance Computing at the Center for Innovation in Engineering (as part of the DoD HPCMP) and he is currently directing pedagogy of the highest enrollment course in the Department. Thomas advises several student-led research projects on structural health monitoring and student-led capstone projects with the US Army PEO Aviation on the development of structural damage detection. Thomas teaches undergraduate courses in Statics, Mechanics, and Structural Dynamics.
Thomas holds a B.S. degree in Civil Engineering from Manhattan College and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Structural Engineering from Lehigh University. He was an NSF research fellow, then JSPS postdoc at the Nakashima-Kurata Laboratory in the Disaster Prevention Research Institute at Kyoto University, Japan. He conducted research at the MIT Senseable City Lab as a postdoc where he led a multidisciplinary research team, in collaboration with industry and several government entities, to pioneer large-scale collection and analyses of crowdsourced smartphone data from vehicle trips over bridges. Thomas also has postdoctoral research experience with the Department of Information Science at Cornell Tech and taught in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University.
Todd Roberts started his career as a geotechnical engineer in Colorado and is a licensed Professional Geologist (PG). As a geotechnical engineer, he launched a monitoring practice in the Rocky Mountain region focusing on infrastructure assets. In 2016, he joined a startup software company known as sensemetrics where he largely led the technical sales and business development efforts. After the acquisition of sensemetrics by Bentley Systems in 2021, Todd led the global business development strategy for Bentley’s IoT solution, representing the 3 recent acquisitions of sensemetrics, Vista Data Vision, and Eagle IO.
Mr. Roberts recently joined GZA as a Vice President where he co-chairs the Digital Technical Solutions (DTS) group for GZA with a focus on IoT growth strategies. Some notable projects over Todd’s 22-year career include California DWR’s Oroville dam, 13 dam, hydroelectric, and reservoir assets owned by Consumers Energy, MBTA’s GLX light rail expansion, Yeager Airport Retaining Wall, numerous BART projects, Big Tujunga Dam, and Finch West LRT in Toronto.
Anna Giacomini is a Professor in Civil Engineering at the University of Newcastle (Australia) and the Director of the Research Centre for Geotechnical Science and Engineering in the College of Engineering, Science and Environment of the University of Newcastle. Anna has been working in the field of rock mechanics and rockfall analyses for more than 20 years. Since 2009, she has been leading several major research projects through industry and government funds on rockfall hazard and mitigation developing new designs for engineered barriers to protect valuable major corridors, infrastructures, and surface mining environments from rockfall hazards, and to provide rigorous guidance on rockfall management strategies. In recent years she has been strongly involved in remote sensing (photogrammetry and aerial surveying) research to assess potential rockfall hazard in the mining space, proposing a novel low-cost continuous terrestrial monitoring system for the recognition of the 3D terrain displacements and the change detection of the rock surfaces. Anna’s contribution to science in rock mechanics and rockfall analysis has been recognised by several awards such as the 2022 NSW Premier’s Prize for Science & Engineering (Engineering or Information & Comm. Technology) and the 2019 John Booker Medal from the Australian Academy of Science. In 2023, Anna was elected Fellow of the Academy of Technology Science and Engineering (ATSE). Anna has published over 150 scientific works, she serves as Editorial board member of four International Journals in the field, as reviewer for several national and international funding bodies and many international journals in the rock mechanics and engineering fields.
Julia Potter is Co-Director of the Geotechnical Center of Excellence (GCE) at the University of Arizona where she leads a team to solve mining geotechnical problems through innovative research and education. Before coming to the GCE, Julia work as a consultant for over a decade, providing geotechnical analysis, design, and modeling work for a wide variety of projects in locations around the world.
Julia has served on the Board of Women in Mining (WIM) Arizona since 2019 in a variety of roles, including Chapter President between 2020-2022, and Vice President of Women in Mining USA (2022-present). Julia holds a BS in Geology and History from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, a Master of Engineering from the University of Arizona, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Geological Engineering.
Mr. Monasterio is a Senior Geotechnical Engineer at BGC Engineering with over 13 years of experience spanning the geotechnical aspects of the pipelines and mining industries with a specialization in instrumentation system design, installation, data collection, and interpretation. Currently, he leads geohazards instrumentation and mitigation project teams for oil and gas pipelines clients. He has helped to establish corporate procedures for evaluating and managing data collected from over 100 geohazards sites. Previously (at BGC and other engineering consultancies) he designed and provided construction oversight for mine tailings dams. He has extensive experience completing geotechnical investigations, geohazard risk evaluation and mitigation, and slope stability and seepage analyses.
Dr. Sipple has over 17 years of experience in the instrumentation, diagnostic testing, structural health monitoring, and analysis of heavy civil structures. He has also been involved in mechanics based projects, both installing strain gages and analyzing parts to determine the optimal sensor type and location for installation. Dr. Sipple’s experience includes planning and executing field installations and testing for large, complex projects; project management; development of new methods for monitoring and data processing; and performing detailed analysis and reporting. Dr. Sipple is a licensed Professional Engineer in several states, sits on various technical committees, and was the former chair of the ASCE SEI Methods of Monitoring Structural Performance Committee.
Dr. Sipple is an Associate Vice President and Engineering Program Manager at BDI. His role includes overseeing the testing, monitoring, and engineering groups, including oversight in both the operational and financial sides of the program as well as technical oversight of active projects.
Dr. Sipple’s research expertise is in dynamic testing of bridges for the purpose of parameter estimation through finite element model updating, commonly referred to as a digital twin. Dr. Sipple’s research on digital twins was using both static and dynamic data to update finite element models based on field measured structural response data.
Tony Simmonds serves on the Geokon Board of Directors at Geokon Inc, Lebanon, NH, USA, a manufacturer of geotechnical instrumentation, where he worked for almost 40 years.
He graduated from Portsmouth University, in the UK, in 1979 with an honors degree in Engineering Geology and Geotechnics, and moved to the US to further his career in 1981.
Among the many projects in which Tony has been involved, some of the most notable include the Three Gorges Dam (China), the Petronas Twin Towers (KL, Malaysia), Itaipu Dam (Paraguay/Brazil), the Central Artery Project (Boston USA) and the Potzdamer Platz (Berlin, Germany).
Tony is an active member of the TRB (Transportation Research Board), DFI (Deep Foundations Institute), USSD (US Society Dam Safety) and is a Life Member of ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers).