KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
ISSMGE President Dr. Marc Ballouz

Meet our first confirmed keynote speaker, the ISSMGE President Dr. Marc Ballouz. Dr Ballouz has been a dedicated member of ISSMGE since 2009 and his main role was leading the PIC, professional image committee where he released the video “what is geotechnical engineering” in 2013 that is still number one on the YouTube search for “Geotechnical”. In May of 2022, he was elected president of ISSMGE at the 20^th ICSMGE conference in Sydney Australia.

In the mid-nineties, he practiced in academia teaching soil and foundation courses and doing research, and in parallel he established his own company Int’l IGM, specializing in design/built solutions with many reference projects and challenging achievements. He is currently an international consultant in forensic geotechnics following his expertise in shoring deep excavations, deep foundations, underpinning with micro-piling, landslide and ground stabilization, and structural designs. Lately, Dr Ballouz has become senior lecturer at Texas State University and as president of ISSMGE has given keynote lectures in more than 15 countries. 

KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
ISSMGE Vice President Europe Prof. Lyesse Laloui

Meet Prof. Lyesse Laloui, our ISSMGE Vice President Europe. Prof. Laloui is a world-renowned scientist in his field and has dedicated much of his career to understanding the natural world for the benefit of society. His research and exploration of the mechanics of geomaterials and other geology has made significant contributions to our understanding of the physical mechanisms of these materials. From this, he has developed innovative and sustainable technologies for today and the generations to come. His efforts in areas such as sustainability, climate change, renewable energy and the optimisation of natural resources have been recognized and awarded by the European Research Council with an Advanced ERC Grant for his project BIOGEOS (BIO-mediated GEO-material Strengthening), followed by an ERC Proof of Concept Grant (PoC) in 2020. Prof. Laloui has also developed several projects for the European Commission as well as the Swiss National Science Foundation. He is a member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences.

Prof. Laloui is an active scientist at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne since 1994, where he directs the Soil Mechanics Laboratory. As founder and honorary Editor-in-Chief of the Elsevier Geomechanics for Energy and the Environment journal, he is a leading scientist in the field of geomechanics and geo-energy. His research portfolio includes many written and edited books and over 350 peer reviewed papers. He is given keynote and invited lectures at more than 50 leading international conferences and won many awards in recognition of his work. In 2022 Prof. Laloui has been recognized for his commitment to global sustainability with two honoris causae from Heriot-Watt University (UK) and from the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca (Romania).