PLENARY SPEECH 1

Associate Professor Leonie Hallo

The School of Management, Adelaide University, Australia

Her academic career spans more than four decades, encompassing teaching, research, and professional practice in psychology, leadership, and organisational management.

She holds a PhD in Psychology (Gold Star Award, 1982) and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Psychology, First Class (1972), both from the University of Adelaide, together with professional qualifications in hypnosis and organisational assessment. Her teaching spans MBA and doctoral programmes, including Leadership and Change Management, Contemporary Issues in Managing Change, Management Research Theory and Methods, and Research in Project Management, and she continues to co-supervise Master's and PhD candidates.

Associate Professor Hallo has authored more than 50 publications across journal articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings. Her research interests include organisational climate and change, leadership and management, emotional intelligence and intuition, complexity leadership. She is also engaged in an ongoing Australia-Vietnam research collaboration on digital technology adoption and systems-thinking approaches to construction and labour workforce, extending her expertise in organisational change and complexity leadership into construction project management.

PLENARY SPEECH 2

Professor João Leal

Department of Engineering Sciences at the University of Agder (UiA), Norway.

Leader of the Energy Systems Research Group.

He has more than 29 years of experience in teaching, research, and development within civil engineering, water resources, renewable energy, and data-driven modelling.

He holds a PhD in Civil Engineering (Hydraulics and Water Resources), an MSc in Hydraulics and Water Resources, and a 5-year degree in Civil Engineering. His teaching activities span undergraduate and graduate courses in hydropower, fluid dynamics, renewable energy systems, and data analysis and modelling techniques.

Professor Leal has participated in more than 20 nationally and internationally funded R&D projects and has authored over 80 scientific publications in international journals and conference proceedings. His research interests include data analysis, conceptual, mathematical and computational modelling of engineering systems involving water resources. More recently, his work has focused on metaheuristic optimization of energy systems and the development of data-driven models for renewable energy forecasting, condition monitoring, and grid integration.

Title paper:

The Next Frontier of Civil Engineering R&D: New Opportunities Enabled by IoT, AI and Cloud Computing

Abstract: The convergence of IoT, artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud computing is creating unprecedented opportunities for Civil Engineering research and innovation. Modern infrastructure systems are increasingly equipped with sensors, SCADA platforms, and digital monitoring technologies, generating vast amounts of data that can be transformed into valuable engineering insights through advanced analytics and machine learning.

This keynote explores how these technologies are expanding the traditional Civil Engineering research toolbox, historically built upon experimentation, theoretical and mathematical analysis, and computational modelling. Emerging data-driven approaches are enabling new capabilities in structural health monitoring, predictive maintenance, digital twins, smart infrastructure management, and climate resilience.

The presentation will also discuss the challenges facing academia and industry, including data quality, explainability, cybersecurity, and the need to adapt engineering curricula to incorporate data analytics and computational skills. The central message is that the future of Civil Engineering lies not in replacing traditional methods, but in integrating experiments, models, and data-driven intelligence to create smarter, safer, and more sustainable infrastructure systems.

PLENARY SPEECH 3

Professor Kuo-Hsin Yang

Department of Civil Engineering and also serves as the Director of the Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience Program at National Taiwan University (NTU).

He received his Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin in 2009. Dr. Yang’s research focuses on water and soil resource conservation, with an emphasis on geotechnics for disaster prevention and sustainability. He is actively engaged in three major research areas: the analysis of compound water–soil disasters induced by typhoons and heavy rainfall, natural disaster mitigation using geosynthetics, and green and renewable geo-energy. Through scientific approaches, his research aims to enhance the safety and sustainability of infrastructure and address the challenges posed by climate change.
Dr. Yang has authored and co-authored more than 100 publications in international journals, conference proceedings, and technical reports. In recognition of his research contributions, he received the Best Paper Award from Geotextiles and Geomembranes in 2024, the Best Paper Award from Geosynthetics International in 2020, and the Best Paper Award from the Journal of GeoEngineering in 2020, 2014, and 2012. He also received the Best Paper Award from the Chinese Institute of Engineers in 2021 and the Best Conference Paper Award at the 7th Asia Young Geotechnical Engineers Conference, held under the auspices of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE), in 2012. He was awarded the Young Member Achievement Award by the International Geosynthetics Society (IGS) in 2014 and the Young Researcher Achievement Award by National Taiwan University in 2020. He has also received an Outstanding Young Researcher Project, a three-year research grant, from Taiwan’s

Ministry of Science and Technology.
Dr. Yang is actively involved in professional societies and technical committees. He participates in the ISSMGE Technical Committees on Reinforced Fill Structures (TC218) and Slope Stability in Engineering Practice (TC208), as well as the IGS Technical Committee on Soil Reinforcement. He serves as a council member of both the Taiwan Geotechnical Society and the Taiwan Geosynthetics Society. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of GeoEngineering and currently serves as an Associate Editor of Geotextiles and Geomembranes.

PLENARY SPEECH 4 (Online)

Associate Professor Thong Pham

Biography: Thong Pham is incoming Professor in Civil Engineering at Flinders University, Australia, moving from Adelaide University. He works on the resilience of infrastructure to impact and blast, FRP-reinforced and precast concrete systems, and low-carbon concrete. He has been a Chief Investigator on more than A$3 million of ARC, government and industry research and has published194 journal articles with more than 12,325 citations (H-index 63), including six Clarivate Highly Cited Papers. He has been listed among the world's top 2% of scientists every year since 2020 and is ranked second worldwide in the SciVal topic "Reinforced Concrete; Dynamic Response; Impact Loads". His honours include the 2026 Nishino Prize, the 2025 IIFC Distinguished Young Researcher Award, and more than ten other research awards.

Title: The Crash Paradox: Four Counterintuitive Phenomena in Impact Dynamics
Abstract: In a simply supported beam, can the reaction force be greater than the applied impact force? Under static loading, the answer is no, i.e., the support reactions must balance the applied load. Under impact, the answer can be yes. This keynote tells the story of a result we first believed was wrong. In impact tests on concrete bridge decks, the forces measured at the supports reached about twice the impact force. We checked the sensors, the set-up and the data repeatedly and found no error. Simulations reproduced the effect, and a simple analytical model explained it. The paradox dissolves into ordinary dynamics. Whether it occurs depends on one ratio, i.e., how long the impact lasts relative to the structure's natural period of vibration. This ratio also explains why the effect had stayed hidden, because in typical drop-weight tests on beams the impact is too brief for it to appear. The talk places this fourth phenomenon alongside three earlier counterintuitive phenomena.