Sustainable Pipe Jacking Technology in the Urban Environment : Recent Advances and Innovations

Dr Marco Barla is Associate Professor at Politecnico di Torino, Italy, teaching 'Numerical methods in geotechnical engineering' and chairing the research group in the areas of rock mechanics, tunnelling and slope stability. He edited one book and over 150 scientific papers and holds a patent of an energy tunnel segment (Enertun). He also acts as a consultant in geotechnical engineering on projects related to slope stability, tunnelling, sewage systems, foundations, monitoring of geotechnical structures and radar interferometry. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the ASCE International Journal of Geomechanics and member of the Editorial Board of Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology and of Soils and Rocks. 

Dr Choo obtained his BEng (Civil Engineering) (1^st Class Honours) in 2010 and subsequently his Ph.D. in 2015, both from Swinburne University of Technology in the field of geotechnical engineering, focusing on micro-tunnelling in the form of pipe jacking. His research interests include rock characterisation, trenchless technologies, deep learning in tunnelling, discrete element modelling of soil behaviour, and geo-education. He is currently a Senior Lecturer at Swinburne University of Technology, Sarawak Campus, as well as being the Chairman for the Youth Wing of the Malaysian Geotechnical Society (MGS). He is a Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng) registered with Engineers Australia. Dr. Choo is currently a nominated member of Technical Committees under the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE), namely TC105 Geo-Mechanics from Micro to Macro, and TC309 Machine Learning and Big Data.