Dr. Antonio Gens Solé

Dr. ANTONIO GENS SOLÉ

ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS

• Civil Engineer (1972) from the Polytechnic University of Madrid.
• M.Sc. in Soil Mechanics (1973) with Mark of Distinction from Imperial College London.
• Ph.D. in Soil Mechanics (1982) at Imperial College London under the supervision of A.W. Bishop and P.R. Vaughan.

ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY

• Since 1983, member of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), where he was appointed Professor in 1987.
• He has served as Secretary and Deputy Director of the School of Civil Engineering of Barcelona, Head of the Department of Geotechnical, Cartographic and Geophysical Engineering, Vice-President of the Council of Departments, and member of the Governing Council of the UPC.
• Visiting Professor at the MIT (USA), the University of Newcastle (Australia), and Imperial College London.
• He has taught undergraduate, master’s and doctoral courses in geotechnical engineering and supervised 25 PhD theses. In 2016 he received the UPC Social Council Award for Teaching Quality in Higher Education.
• Numerary Member of the Royal European Academy of Doctors (RAED) (2005).
• Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, United Kingdom (2011).
• Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Grenoble (France, 2014).
• Member of the ISSMGE since 1981 and Vice-President for Europe (2013–2017).
• Member of the Board of Directors of the Spanish Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering since 2006.
• Has served on 9 Technical Committees of the ISSMGE and is a member of the British Geotechnical Association and the Southeast Asian Geotechnical Society.
• Delivered the Rankine Lecture (2007), Coulomb Lecture (2013), and other prestigious international keynote lectures.
• Consultant in a wide range of geotechnical projects in Spain and abroad: tunnels, dams, airports, nuclear and thermal power plants, foundations, and nuclear waste repositories.
• Member of expert committees investigating the collapse of the Nicoll Highway (Singapore), waste management at Comurhex-Malvési (France), and the construction of the high-speed train tunnel next to the Sagrada Família (Barcelona).
• Expert in international arbitration for projects such as the Al Faw Grand Port (Iraq) and the Muscat International Airport (Oman).
• Chair of the Engineered Barrier Systems (EBS) Task Force of the Swedish agency SKB, coordinating 7 national agencies and 8 research teams.
• Task Leader of the international project DECOVALEX, coordinated by the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (USA).
• Research fields: unsaturated soils, soft clays, coupled multiphysical analyses, constitutive and numerical models, tunnels, slope stability, tailings dams, ground improvement, and nuclear waste storage.
• He has participated in more than 50 research projects funded by regional, national, European, and industrial agencies.

PUBLICATIONS

• Over 35 years of experience in research, consultancy, and teaching in geotechnical engineering.
• Author or co-author of more than 400 papers in international journals and conferences, 15 book chapters, and co-editor of 12 books and special issues.
• Has delivered more than 80 keynote lectures across five continents.

AWARDS AND HONOURS

• Honor Medal from the College of Civil Engineers, Spain (2014).
• Narcís Monturiol Medal from the Government of Catalonia (2015).
• Mont Terri Consortium Award (Switzerland, 2015).
• Kevin Nash Gold Medal from the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) (2017).
• Also recipient of the Telford Medal (1994, 2007), the George Stephenson Medal (2008, 2012), and the Geotechnical Research Medal (2014) from the Institution of Civil Engineers (United Kingdom).