Innovation and Sustainability in Civil Engineering: Shaping Tomorrow’s Infrastructure Volume 3 Geotechnical Engineering

Dr. Shiv Shankar Kumar is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at National Institute of Technology Patna, Bihar. He has completed his Ph.D. in Geotechnical Engineering from IIT Guwahati in 2018, where his research focused on the dynamic response of soils subjected to seismic excitations, utilizing cyclic triaxial testing. He also holds a Master of Technology in Geotechnical Engineering from IIT Guwahati and a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering from Muzaffarpur Institute of Technology, Bihar. His thrust area of research is Foundation Engineering, Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering, Soil-Structure Interaction, and Ground Improvement Techniques.

Dr. Kumar has an impressive publication record with numerous journal articles, book chapters, and conference papers published in renowned journals such as the Indian Geotechnical Journal, Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, and International Journal of Geo-engineering. His research has significantly contributed to understanding soil behavior under seismic loads and developing site-specific ground response models, especially for regions like Bihar and Northeast India. His expertise encompasses advanced testing techniques, including cyclic triaxial tests, shake table experiments, and surface wave analysis, which underpin his research on seismic site response, soil liquefaction, and ground improvement.

Dr. Anil Kumar Sharma is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Patna, India. He holds a Ph.D. in Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, where his research focused on the application of industrial by-products such as Class-F fly ash and ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) for sustainable geotechnical improvements. He completed his B.Tech. in Civil Engineering from Cochin University of Science and Technology in 2009.

Dr. Sharma’s research interests lie in the domains of bio-geotechnics, ground improvement techniques, recycled construction materials, geosynthetics, slope stability, and environmental geotechnics. He has made significant contributions to sustainable construction practices, particularly in the stabilization of problematic soils using eco-friendly and waste-derived materials. His current research also explores microbial-induced calcite precipitation (MICP) for improving coal ash and other geomaterials.

Dr. Arindam Dey is currently an associate professor at Civil Engineering Department of IIT Guwahati. He is also an associate faculty and one of the founder members of the Center for Disaster Management and Research (CDMR), IIT Guwahati. He obtained his B.E. from Jadavpur University Kolkata, followed by M.Tech. and Ph.D. from IIT Kanpur. Before joining IIT Guwahati in 2011, he has been a post-doctoral fellow at the StreGa Laboratory, University of Molise, Campobasso, Italy. He is an active researcher in several streams of geotechnical engineering and disaster management including foundation engineering, geotechnical earthquake engineering, transportation geotechnics, soil-structure interaction, geophysical investigation, geosynthetics engineering, landslide geotechnology, computational geotechnics, as well as applications of AI/ML and soft computing in geotechnical engineering.

Prof. Varenyam Achal is a tenured professor and deputy dean of Undergraduate Studies at the Guangdong Technion—Israel Institute of Technology (GTIIT), China. He holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering and an M.Sc. in Biotechnology from Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, India. With a research career spanning over 15 years, Prof. Achal is internationally recognized for his pioneering contributions in environmental biotechnology, bioremediation technologies, biomineralization, and biologically-inspired construction materials.